George RR Martin hopes to finally publish his penultimate book in A Song of Ice and Fire next year. If he meets this deadline, The Winds of Winter will release 10 years after the last book in the series A Dance with Dragons. And in his latest writing progress update, the 71-year-old has revealed he’s managed to write an impressive three whole chapters in a week.

Martin posted on his blog over the weekend: “This writing stuff is hard.

“Even so, it has been going well of late.  

“Three more chapters completed this past week. And good progress on several more.

“Still a long long way to go, though. Do not get too excited.”

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The last book A Dance with Dragons had 73 chapters including prologues and epilogues.

And considering that Martin intends The Winds of Winter to be a big book suggests it will be longer.

So with over 30 chapters accounted for, it can probably be theorised that the Game of Thrones legend is around half way through, or up to two-thirds if we’re being generous on his “dozens” of chapters comment.

After all, he did says there’s “still a long long way to go”, so it’s unlikely he’s near the finish line.

But if Martin keeps his pace up, a 2021 publication should look pretty manageable.

Following The Winds of Winter, the author will have a palate cleanser in a Dunk and Egg short story.

He will then tackle the final book in A Song of Ice and Fire, A Dream of Spring.

After tha,t Martin intends on writing another Dunk and Egg before finally penning Fire and Blood volume 2.