Nearly 15 years after George R.R. Martin published A Dance With Dragons — the most recent installment in his A Song of Ice and Fire series, which inspired the critically acclaimed fantasy drama Game of Thrones — he still hasn’t finished The Winds of Winter. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look promising for anyone hoping to read it anytime soon. Game of Thrones was infamously forced to diverge from the storylines in the books around Season 5 due to lack of content, and longtime fans were left frustrated as they daydreamed about whether the show’s ending would have been more satisfying if it had been able to follow Martin’s exact vision. During a sit-down with The Hollywood Reporter, Martin, 77, compared his struggle with finishing the highly-anticipated novel with another famous writer who lost the spark for his own book series — Dune author Frank Herbert. He revealed that he met Herbert at a convention in 1975, a time when the man was bombarded with demands and money offers for more Dune, despite his desire to work on other projects. “He didn’t like Dune anymore, and he didn’t want to write any more Dune books,” Martin recalled. “But he felt locked in by the success of Dune, so he kept writing them.” When asked if he related to Herbert’s plight, the 77-year-old replied, “I’m not necessarily tired of the world [of Ice and Fire]. I love the world and the world-building. But, yes, I do.” Last year, during an appearance at New York Comic Con, Martin also spoke out about the Winds of Winter delays as he reflected on the online backlash he receives every time he decides to take on a new project.
“I’ve always had trouble with deadlines, and I don’t feel happy breaching contracts or missing a deadline or anything like that. Every time that happens…’Why the f— is George R.R. Martin writing this other thing when he should be writing Winds of Winter? What is he doing?’ I want to say, ‘I did it in 1993, guys. Come on! It was lying in my drawer, and they wanted it, so I sold it to them!’ Yes, I do love Winds of Winter. I’m still interested in it, I’m still working on it, but honestly, I love these other things, too.”

New ‘GoT’ Spinoff Could Face Similar Problems as ‘Winds of Winter’

An all-new GoT spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, is set to premiere on Sunday, Jan. 18. The fantasy drama will follow the life and adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey), and his 10-year-old squire, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell), 100 years before the events of Game of Thrones. While the show has already received some rave reviews — it’s currently Certified Fresh with an 87 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes — Martin admitted that, much like the original show, he hasn’t finished as much content for the characters as he’d like.

“The big issue is that I have only written three novellas, and I have a lot more stories about Dunk and Egg in my f—ing head,” Martin told THR. “I’ve got to get them down on paper.”