'Winds Of Winter' Release Date: GRRM Won’t Write Anything Else Until He Finishes Winds

By Apolon Published 02/21/16 EST

George R.R. Martin will continue to work on his A Song of Ice And Fire saga at his own pace. HBO's Game of Thrones reaching the end before hime won't speed up his creative process. winteriscoming.net

A crushing blow came earlier this year when George R. R. Martin announced that the Winds of Winter release date would not arrive before the Game of Thrones season 6 premiere on April 24. It’s a big disappointment, but from reading his long blog post about it, it’s very clear that the most disappointed party is George R. R. Martin himself. Well, he’s working on making it right. As he said in the comments on a recent blog post, he’s not writing anything else until Winds of Winter is signed, sealed, delivered.

Winds Of Winter Release Date: George Is Working Real Hard

We’ve been waiting for the Winds of Winter release date for a long time, but it’s a lot easier to wait than it is to actually write the thing. We just get to keep waiting. GRRM has to actually finish the thing. And he’s working on it. On Feb. 16 in a comment on his blog (hat tip: WinterIsComing), GRRM noted that “I am not writing anything until I deliver Winds of Winter. Teleplays, screenplays, short stories, introductions, forewords, nothing. And I've dropped all my editing projects but Wild Cards.” So, no episode written by GRRM in the next season or two of Game of Thrones. Instead, he’s working on the books.

This is unequivocally good news, folks. As WinterIsComing noted, he’s also bowing out of some other commitments involving travel so he can focus on the book. The decision not to work on editing projects besides Wild Cards is also critical. George has had a lot of these projects in the last few years—from fantasy anthologies to books like World of Ice and Fire. All of them take up time (not to mention the convention visits!), and are part of the reason why Winds of Winter isn’t already out.

Basically: GRRM is clearing his schedule to finish Winds of Winter. The book obviously still isn’t coming out during Game of Thrones season 6, but he’s making the effort to get it out soon—to accomplish that last push and get it done. Hopefully that means we’ll all be reading Winds of Winter later this year. At the least, we’ll be reading it sooner than we would otherwise.