Over 12 years since the release of A Dance with Dragons and A Song of Ice and Fire fans are losing their patience.

The Game of Thrones TV show has come and gone within this timeframe as George RR Martin continues to write The Winds of Winter.

Every now and then the 75-year-old gives an update on his progress on his blog and one of his most extensive posts in months is now up.

The author has been on a two-and-a-half-week trip to London “mostly for work”, alongside catching some West End shows, over the Halloween and Bonfire Night period.

Aside from visiting the House of the Dragon season 2 set and meeting with the creators of the upcoming Game of Thrones play, Martin wrote about The Winds of Winter.

Martin, who hasn’t been to the UK for a few years, wrote: “I also found time to meet with my British publisher, and my other British publisher, to talk WILD CARDS and A SONG OF ICE & FIRE and (of course) THE WINDS OF WINTER.”

If the author is meeting with his publishers that’s surely a good sign that he’s in discussions about when he’ll have finished The Winds of Winter and therefore tentatively when the novel could finally be published.

He also wrote of having previously been too busy to visit the House of the Dragon season 2 set due to the Hollywood writers’ strike.

Martin wrote: “Instead I stayed here in Santa Fe, working on WINDS OF WINTER and walking a picket line).

The 75-year-old signed off: “A lovely trip, all in all. We even got to see some fireworks on the Fifth of November. But now I am back, and there is so much work to be done. Current Mood: tired.”