For most people, 2020 was not an especially good year especially considering the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and it’s something not lost on Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin. The author shared his reflections on what he called “a Bad Year” in a new post to his website on Tuesday and while he acknowledged the difficulties of 2020 — including some personal losses — Martin did offer one glimmer of hope. Martin’s update included news that he wrote “hundreds and hundreds of pages” of the eagerly anticipated The Winds of Winter last year.
In his post, Martin said that, in terms of the writing, 2020 was the best year he’s had on the book since beginning it, but there’s still a lot more to go before it will be in the hands of fans.
“I wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages of The Winds of Winter in 2020,” Martin wrote. “The best year I’ve had on [the book] since I began it. Why? I don’t know. Maybe the isolation. Or maybe I just got on a roll. Sometimes I do get on a roll.”
He continued, “I need to keep rolling, though. I still have hundreds of more pages to write to bring the novel to a satisfactory conclusion. That’s what 2021 is for, I hope.”
Martin also cautioned that fans shouldn’t take his hope for 2021 as a promise, however. While he plans to finish the novel in 2021, he also wrote that he has “a zillion other things to do as well”.
Martin’s most recent update on The Winds of Winter was in November 2020 when he wrote that he was continuing to “inch closer” on the book. Before that, in August 2020, Martin offered a few more details on his work, detailing how isolation in his mountain cabin impacted his general routine.
“I am back in my fortress of solitude again, my isolated mountain cabin. I’d returned to Santa Fe for a short visit, to spend some time with Parris, deal with some local business that had piled up during my months away, and of course fulfill my duties to CoNZealand, the virtual worldcon,” Martin wrote. “But all that is behind me now, and I am back on the mountain again… which means I am back in Westeros again, once more moving ahead with Winds of Winter.”
Continue to check back here for more updates on The Winds of Winter.
What do you think of Martin’s latest update on that much-anticipated installment of “A Song of Ice and Fire”? Let us know in the comment section.
Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for HBO
