The next installation in the popular A Song of Ice and Fire series, on which the Games of Thrones television series was based, is likely next year.

But when exactly, we aren’t sure. And neither is

author George R.R. Martin.

Martin has been locked away in a cabin, writing the series’ sixth installation The Winds of Winter since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. In a blogpost yesterday, June 23, he said he’s making “steady progress” on the long-awaited follow-up to 2011’s A Dance with Dragons, which took him six years to complete.

Claiming isolation has helped his writing, the 71-year-old said, “I finished a new chapter yesterday, another one three days ago, another one the previous week. But no, this does not mean that the book will be finished tomorrow or published next week. It’s going to be a huge book, and I still have a long way to go. Please do not give any credence to any of the click-bait websites that like to parse every word of my posts as if they were papal encyclicals to divine hidden meanings.”

Despite having to cancel plans to go to Wellington, New Zealand for the annual World Science Fiction Convention, Martin said there was one positive to have come from that. “The last thing I need right now is a long interruption that might cost me all the momentum I have built up. I can always visit Wellington next year, when I hope that both COVID-19 and THE WINDS OF WINTER will be done.”

A seventh book, A Dream of Spring, is also planned for the series.