As for the update: "Not done yet, but I've made progress. But not as much as I hoped a year ago, when I thought to be done by now. I think it will be out this year. (But hey, I thought the same thing last year)."Martin revealed in his 2016 update that he had expected to be done with The Winds of Winter by the time Season 6 premiered in April -- in fact, he had expected to be done with the book by October 2015. When it became clear that wouldn't be the case and he blew past multiple editor deadlines, Martin told his fans he was done setting a time frame for himself.
"I won't make excuses. There are no excuses," Martin wrote in the 2016 LiveJournal post. "No one else is to blame. Not my editors and publishers, not HBO, not [Game of Thrones showrunners] David [Benioff] & Dan [Weiss]. It's on me. I tried, and I am still trying. ... I am going back to my stance from last March, before all this. It will be done when it's done. And it will be as good as I can possibly make it."At the time, Martin said he expected publisher Bantam Books would be able to release the book within three months of his finished manuscript being submitted, "if their schedules permit."
As Martin said in his recent blog comment, he has had forward momentum on The Winds of Winter. In May 2016, he released a new sample chapter from the novel that focused on Arianne Martell, a focal character in the books who did not make the transition to the TV show.The Winds of Winter will be the sixth novel in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. The last ASoIaF book he released, A Dance With Dragons, was published in 2011. His current plan is for there to be one more book after The Winds of Winter, which will be called A Dream of Spring.
Meanwhile, the Game of Thrones TV show has officially passed the plot of Martin's published writing, and is going full steam ahead. Filming on Season 7 is nearing completion and is slated for a summer 2017 premiere date -- which, for context, is several months later than previous seasons' spring air dates. The intention is for Game of Thrones to conclude with Season 8. Martin is reportedly still in "preliminary ongoing talks" with HBO to make a Game of Thrones prequel series as well.