GRRM really is really struggling with The Book That Was Promised.

George Martin ’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series became an international hit thanks to the HBO adaptation, Game of Thrones. This TV show launched the author right into stardom, but it also crippled his ability to continue the novels: since the series premiered in 2011, GRRM hasn’t been able to complete The Winds of Winter, the next book in the series. It’s already been 13 years, an entire Azkaban sentence.

GRRM Hated and ‘Ripped Apart’ His Writing

It’s been over a dozen years, and we’ve heard countless explanations for George Martin’s stalling from the author and his close friends. In 2022, however, GRRM shared something especially peculiar during his interview with Penguin Random House: apparently, he’d made quite some progress, but then destroyed it all.

“I continue to work on [The Winds of Winter]. It continues to get longer and longer. I was working on it the day before I flew back here for three or four days. But I was rereading some chapters that I’d written earlier and I didn’t like them well enough and I kind of ripped them apart and rewrote them,” the author explained.

Doesn’t sound too hopeful, does it? But after years of such frustrating updates, something was bound to change — and it did. To a reasonable extent, at least.

GRRM Can’t Make Meaningful TWoW Progress

Apart from tearing down and reworking his already-written chapters, George Martin has been having many other issues with the notorious book. Previously, the author’s friend and colleague Diana Gabaldon shared he’d “painted himself into a corner” as he realized he needed the character who had already been killed off at that point.

All the revelations about The Winds of Winter’s unfortunate progress are pointing in one general direction: George Martin isn’t quite sure where to take the book and is struggling with its direction. TWoW is the latest-set novel that will define the entire history of Westeros — and that pressure seems too much for the author as he escapes from it into writing prequels, something that’s been long-established by him.

But 13 years is a long time, and George Martin might finally be ready to finish his book. Recently, the author provided a genuine release window for The Winds of Winter in his Not a Blog update. Based on our calculations, GRRM expects to release the notorious novel between the end of 2025 and 2026.