In a June 23 blog post, George R.R. Martin, the author of the Game of Thrones novels confirmed that he has made “steady progress” on his long-awaited novel, The Winds of Winter – his last book A Dance With Dragons was published in 2011.

“I am spending long hours every day on The Winds of Winter, and making steady progress,” Martin wrote in a post. “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. I have bad days, which get me down, and good days, which lift me up, but all in all I am pleased with the way things are doing.”

“Of late I have been visiting with Cersei, Asha, Tyrion, Ser Barristan, and Areo Hotah,” Martin added. “I will be dropping back into Braavos next week…I do wish [the words] would go faster, of course. Way way back in 1999, when I was deep in the writing of ‘A Storm of Swords,’ I was averaging about 150 pages of manuscript a month. I fear I shall never recapture that pace again. Looking back, I am not sure how I did it then.”