It’s been 12 years since George RR Martin last published a book in his A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series. 

Since Game of Thrones concluded four years ago, the 74-year-old has been reassuring his fans that he’s working hard on the next book, The Winds of Winter.

He also claimed to have made significant progress during the lockdowns of the pandemic.

So whenever the author shares a blog update on how he’s getting on, fans are eager to hear any news.

This is especially the case with the latest writers’ strike, which he’s addressed in his new post over the weekend.

READ MORE: George RR Martin’s writing schedule spells bad news for ASOIAF fans

Martin shared with fans that House of the Dragon season 2 has not been affected by the writers’ strike since the scripts were finished months ago.

However, the other Game of Thrones spin-off A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight has seen its writers’ room close for the duration of the strike.

The quest is though, does it affect the author himself in his writing of the already severely delayed The Winds of Winter? He addressed this.

Martin reassured fans: “Some of you, I fear, may be having anxiety attacks just now, on the mistaken assumption that this strike affects WINDS OF WINTER. You can relax.   

“The WGA is a union of film and television writers. It has nothing to do with novels, short stories, or any other form of prose fiction, nor comic books and graphic novels, nor stage plays, nor the editing of collections and anthologies   I have on-going projects in all those areas, and that work continues unabated.  And WINDS continues to be priority number one.”

In December he said he had around 400-500 pages to go with 1100-1200 already done. So it could well be another two or three years to go before publication given it took him 11 years to write two-thirds to three-quarters of the novel.