It has now, officially, been just over a year since the last update on the Winds of Winter release date. Early in 2016, George R. R. Martin took to LiveJournal (which never ceases to be funny) to announce that he had failed to meet his own deeply yearned-for goal of finishing Winds of Winter in time for Game of Thrones season 6. It was not to be—but he left us with the impression that he was at least getting sort of close. That was a year ago. Since then, nothing.

Winds of Winter Release Date: A Year Of Silence Ends With Silence

First off, don’t freak out or anything. It really has been a long wait for Winds of Winter, but it’s not anything wildly out of the ordinary for the series. Every book in A Song of Ice and Fire has been a long wait, at least since the Storm of Swords release date and the end of the original trilogy he had planned out the most meticulously. He’s just not a fast writer.

Still, it’s a little disconcerting. We had hoped that his almost literally tearful admission that, even after multiple extensions, he wouldn’t hit his deadline meant that he was at least close to hitting his deadline, a few months short. Instead, it’s been a year. We didn’t get a Christmas surprise. We didn’t even get an update. The last we heard was from EW back in December, and GRRM didn’t comment on the release date—although he did warn us that the book is going to be super dark.

Not that George R. R. Martin owes us one—we aren’t entitled to any news about the book. Did we get Order of the Phoenix in the long wait for that book (not this long, certainly)? Not really. Was Tolkien giving annual updates about the progress of The Silmarillion, which, by the way, he never finished? I don’t think so.

George R. R. Martin will finish Winds of Winter when he’s good and ready, whenever that is. On the plus side, George has no planned appearances before the end of April, giving him plenty of time to work on the book. And, while we’re certainly entitled to be frustrated about how freaking long it’s taking, the radio silence is his right. Chances are, in this case, no news is good news—we didn't get an update saying he was nowhere close. Maybe that means he's almost done. Or maybe it means nothing at all. We'll just have to keep wondering and hoping for now.