George R.R. Martin Says 'Winds of Winter' Inches Closer

Only George R.R. Martin can save 2020 by finally finishing The Winds of Winter. And it doesn't sound like it is going to happen.

GRRM updated the world on his long-awaited next installment of A Song of Ice and Fire on his blog (well, to him, it's "not a blog").

“No, sorry, still not done, but I do inch closer,” Martin writes. “It is a big-big book. I try not to dwell on that too much. I write a chapter at a time, a page at a time, a sentence at a time, a word at a time. It is the only way. And sometimes I rewrite.”

Positive GoT fans like myself will highlight the "inch closer" part of the update. Could it mean 2021? Doubt it, but we can hope.

Nearly a decade has passed since A Dance with Dragons. In that time, Game of Thrones made a case to be the greatest TV show of all-time, only to give us the most disappointing final season of all-time.

GRRM says the Lannisters are getting most of his focus these days:

"Of late I have been spending a lot of time with the Lannisters. Cersei and Tyrion in particular. I’ve also paid a visit to Dorne, and dropped in to Oldtown a time or three. In addition to turning out new chapters, I’ve been revising some old ones (some very old)… including, yes, some stuff I read at cons ages ago, or even posted online as samples. I tweak stuff constantly, and sometimes go beyond tweaking, moving things around, combining chapters, breaking chapters in two, reordering stuff."

We could do without the tweaking and reordering, George. Again, it has been 10 years.

One could conclude he'd plan to get Winds out before HBO debuts House of the Dragon, the GoT prequel, which is rumored for 2022. However, that's not how GRRM operates. He fell so far behind, the TV show ended before his final two books were finished. Yes, A Dream of Spring, the planned final book, could be another 10+ years away.

I appreciate the update, though.