George R.R. Martin may make a Winds of Winter announcement very soon (UPDATE: Not so much)

George R.R. Martin’s has made a few interesting comments on his Not a Blog lately. Yesterday, he shot down a deeply pessimistic rumor that he hadn’t completed ANY new pages of The Winds of Winter since A Dance with Dragons was published in 2011. That might seem obvious to most of us, but as Martin doesn’t like to discuss A Song of Ice and Fire on his personal blog, it was notable.

Later that night, he implied that he’ll be dropping some new information about Winds very shortly—tomorrow, in fact. Ironically, the implication about Winds came at the tail-end of a comment about how frustrating it could be to get bombarded with questions about his progress on the book. In Martin’s words:

"I know that each individual who asks that question thinks it is just one question… but the questioning is endless. Every day. From many sources. Blog comments, livejournal messages, emails, sometimes snail mail, interviews. No matter how often I update (I used to, you know, several books back), someone else will be along the next day to ask for another one. It wears me out."

We can only imagine how difficult it is to field the same questions day after day after day. I wonder if he stopped writing regular updates about his progress in part to ward off questions, which would mean that the more people asked about his work, the less information they got. Irony’s ironic like that.

Anyway, the ending line is where the action is. After discussing the constant press of Winds of Winter-related questions, Martin wrote:

"I may do a year’s end post tomorrow though, so…"

The implication here is that The Winds of Winter will be included on whatever 2015 roundup Mr. Martin may choose to write. This tracks with something from a post he put up on Christmas Day: “Been quite a year, but I can reflect on that closer to New Year’s.” What could it be? Release date? Progress report? Nothing? Anything’s possible, but should it happen, they’ll be no stopping the questions from flowing. Until then, let’s have peace.

Enjoy your New Year’s Eves, everybody!

UPDATE: Per Martin’s blog, he wrote a lengthy post that looked “back on the year that is ending, and all the things that happened in it, the good and the bad.” Unfortunately, LiveJournal ate it. Blast those technical difficulties!

Ah, well. We’ll be on the lookout to see if anything turns up. Also: Happy New Year to George R.R. Martin, everyone on the site, and Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire fans everywhere!