George R.R. Martin Thinks “The Winds of Winter” Will Be Released This Year

In a new blog post George R.R. Martin says he is hopeful that “The Winds of Winter” will be finished soon and released this year.

It took ten days and a whole lot of pressure from the internet, but finally, George R.R. Martin has officially broken his silence on the status of The Winds of Winter. As you may recall, last week, after Martin failed to produce his traditional New Year’s Day post giving status updates on all of his projects, fans began to complain. Even though we all knew what the answer was–the book’s not done yet!

Then a couple of days ago, in the comment section of an unrelated post, Martin broke his silence, admitting exactly what we knew. He seemed cheerful though, since at least “a giant asteroid hitting the Earth and destroying human civilization” hadn’t happened yet either.

The excitement that one little comment brought was so high that Martin finally gave in and made it an “official statement” last night. (Though, we should note, still not an official blog post.)

"You really think statements like that would make a difference? Ah, you sweet summer child. I have years of experience with this that tells me otherwise.But okay, I will try it your way.Not done yet, but I’ve made progress. But not as much as I hoped a year ago, when I thought to be done by now.I think it will be out this year. (But hey, I thought the same thing last year)."

Last year, when Martin said it would come out, I was hopeful this was true. Now that the pressure was off to beat Game of Thrones to the finish line, perhaps the writing would come easier. But it was not to be.

This year, I am hopeful again, but not just because Martin is. This year I am hopeful Martin will finish, because the numbers say he will. Don’t believe me? Check out this graph The Washington Post published back just after Season 4 ended.

Screencap via The Washington Post

In it, they plot out, page by page, how long it took Martin to write each of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels. According to their numbers, The Winds of Winter was never going to be finished until this year anyway, simply due to the speed Martin has been writing at this entire time. Viewed from that perspective, we the fans have actually been demanding he finish early.

If Martin’s rosy assessment of how he’s doing holds, and The WInds of Winter arrives in time for us all to have it to read over the winter holiday in December, he’ll be right on time. He’ll also prove this graph right–which means that A Dream of Spring will be hitting shelves on or about the year 2023.

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So let’s all agree that if Martin does release the book this year, we’ll all leave him alone about the next one, up or until about the year 2022. Okay? Sounds reasonable to me anyway.