George R.R. Martin Admits Deadline Struggles — Winds of Winter Delays Still Weigh on Him

George R.R. Martin popped up at New York Comic Con and, yes, he talked about The Winds of Winter again. Short version: he knows it is late, he is not thrilled about that, and he is still working on it.

Where his head is at

Martin was pretty frank about it: deadlines have always been a weak spot for him, and blowing past them does not make him feel great. He is not celebrating contract breaches or missed dates; he is just a writer who wrestles with timelines. He also made a point of saying he still cares about Winds — he loves it, he is actively writing — but he also enjoys other projects and is not going to pretend otherwise.

The side-project backlash he is tired of

This is the part that always sets the internet on fire. Whenever a studio scoops up rights to one of Martin’s older works — the stuff that suddenly looks more valuable thanks to Game of Thrones — people assume he is off chasing new ideas instead of finishing the book. He pushed back on that, hard, noting those are old pieces being licensed now, not fresh detours pulling him away from the manuscript. A lot of it dates back decades. As he put it, those stories were written in the early 90s and sat in a drawer until buyers came calling.

"Why the fuck is George R.R. Martin writing this other thing when he should be writing Winds of Winter? What is he doing?"

His answer, paraphrased: that "other thing" is from 1993, not some shiny new distraction.

The state of play

• The last book in A Song of Ice and Fire was A Dance with Dragons in 2011. Before that, the longest gap between entries was six years. We are well past that now.
• Martin says he is still working on The Winds of Winter and still cares about it, even if his track record with deadlines is rough and he hates missing them.
• Meanwhile, your next official trip to Westeros will be on TV: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, based on his Dunk and Egg novellas, is set around a century before Game of Thrones and follows an unlikely duo — a hedge knight and his young squire.
• A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is scheduled to premiere on HBO and HBO Max on January 18, 2026.

So, no magic release date for Winds. But the book is still in progress, and the Dunk and Egg series has a firm date. See you back in Westeros — one way or another.