Bad news for those of us waiting for the “Winds of Winter” release date, i.e., almost everybody: George R. R. Martin has admitted that he’s actually at times making negative progress on the book. That’s right: According to DigitalSpy, George often feels like he’s going backwards and is continually revising recently rewritten material, which partially explains the long delay in the book. So much for hoping it will come out before “Game of Thrones” season 5: It’s pretty much a sheer impossibility at this point. Good thing he’s said we can watch “Game of Thrones” even without the book.
”Winds of Winter” Release Date News
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The news from Digital Spy about the “Winds of Winter” release date could hardly be worse, at least for those of us who are wildly excited for the sixth “Game of Thrones” book (Sorry, that’s what we call them now). He’s entirely done making predictions for when the book will be done, and he admitted:
I have days where I make lots of progress. I have days where I make next to no progress, I have days where I think I'm going backwards because I don't like what I wrote yesterday. So I've given up making any predictions on that. I'm just writing it and when it's done, it'll be done.
So, basically, the “Winds of Winter” release date remains, as ever, in a state of absolute flux. And there are days when George is making true reverse progress, or at least spending an entire day fixing what came before. And he still continues to travel to a lot of conventions and other events—not to begrudge him that, which I don’t (well, I try not to). That obviously slows progress.
But I don’t mean to be all doom and gloom. George isn’t writing an episode of “Game of Thrones” season 5, a first, and he’s also largely eliminating his overall involvement in the show, in both cases so he has more time to work on the sixth book. He’s actually been quite involved so far, probably more than a lot of us has realized, so scaling that down may indeed help him finish “A Song of Ice and Fire” in a much more timely manner. But it may also cost the show—heck, perhaps that’s why Arianne Martell won’t be in season 5. I feel like George wouldn’t allow that (full disclosure: It’s possible they just haven’t announced the casting yet, but it looks like she was cut).
But, the “Game of Thrones” show must go on, and it will, with George or (this year) without. And if it means we get “Winds of Winter” that much sooner, that its publication date actually rolls around in 2015—that’s great news. A little rewriting, a little backwards progress, is only natural. But let’s hope that with more dedicated attention, he can really bang this one out.
