George R.R. Martin “struggling” with The Winds of Winter

By now, fans are used to hearing A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin deliver mildly optimistic updates about the progress of the long-awaited sixth book in his series, The Winds of Winter. He’s said that he works on the book “almost every day” and that he’s making “steady progress.” But for fans who have been waiting since A Dance With Dragons came out in 2011 — the entire length of the HBO show Game of Thrones and then some — it can all read like more of the same.

And that’s what Martin gave us during a recent interview with Bang, a Portuguese magazine dedicated to all things sci-fi, fantasy, movies, TV, board games and so on. It’s a long interview that also includes author Bernard Cornwell, the guy behind The Saxon Stories, The Warlord Chronicles and other excellent historical fiction series. The interview is long and worth watching, although we’ll cut to The Winds of Winter of it all below.

“The main thing I’m actually writing, of course, is the same thing,” Martin said, referring to The Winds of Winter. “I wish I could write as fast as Bernard but I’m 12 years late on this damn novel and I’m struggling with it.”

"I have like 1,100 pages written but I still have hundreds more pages to go. It’s a big mother of a book for whatever reason. Maybe I should’ve started writing smaller books when I began this but it’s tough. That’s the main thing that dominates most of my working life."

This is much the same thing that Martin said several months ago when he appeared on a segment of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. When Martin is asked how much of The Winds of Winter he’s written, he replies, “Eh, like 1,100, 1,200, something like that…it’s not done yet though. I need another 400 [or] 500 pages.”

Will we ever get to read about what happens next to characters like Tyrion Lannister, Arya Stark and Jon Snow? It’s unclear, but I wouldn’t start making a space for The Winds of Winter under this year’s Christmas tree, at the least.

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h/t IGN