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George R.R. Martin Has No (New) Pages

The Song of Ice and Fire scribe's latest update in the Winds of Winter saga is that he's pretty much where he was at this time last year.

Well, maybe he doesā€”after all, part of writing a novel as long-in-the-works and expansive as The Winds of Winter, the latest novel in the Song of Ice and Fire series that gave us Game of Thrones, is going back and revising things. But if you were hoping author George R.R. Martinā€™s latest update on the book he hoped to stop updating us about would come with a shiny new number, then, bad news.

ā€œThe main thing Iā€™m actually writing, of course, is the same thing,ā€ Martin recently said of Winds in an appearance on Bangcast. ā€œI wish I could write as fast as [Last Kingdom writer] Bernard Cornwell but Iā€™m 12 years late on this damn novel and Iā€™m struggling with it,ā€ Martin said.

ā€œI have like 1,100 pages written but I still have hundreds more pages to go,ā€ the writer continued. ā€œItā€™s a big mother of a book for whatever reason. Maybe I shouldā€™ve started writing smaller books when I began, this but itā€™s tough. Thatā€™s the main thing that dominates most of my working life.ā€

That 1,100 number is familiar to anyone who has now been following the story of Winds of Winter being written for a decent chunk of their lifeā€”itā€™s the same page count Martin gave roughly this time last year, when he discussed the novel on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Then, Martin estimated that he had around another 500 pages or more to write, having previously estimated that Winds would be the longest novel in the series so far, trumping the approximately 1,500 page manuscripts for Dance with Dragons and Storm of Swords.

Itā€™s perhaps not the update people hoped for when it comes to Winds of Winter, but itā€™s an update nonetheless. Re-iteration and revision is part of any writing process, let alone an undertaking as vast and with as high expectations as Winds of Winterā€”and as Martin enters what is, hopefully, at long last the home stretch of bringing his manuscript to an end, maybe a year of working on what he already had is exactly what he needed.


Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, whatā€™s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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