- the writer of A Song of Fire and Ice that has been adapted into one of todays most popular TV Series admitted via a live journal that he won't be able to deliver the next book titled 'Winds of Winter' before the upcoming season of the TV series airs, as he promised before

- he first promised that the book would release in Halloween, then in December 31st

-  on missed deadline blame, he said:

"You can blame my travels or my blog posts or the distractions of other projects and the Cocteau and whatever, but maybe all that had an impact... you can blame my age, and maybe that had an impact too,"

- on his history of missing deadlines:

"...but if truth be told, sometimes the writing goes well and sometimes it doesn't, and that was true for me even when I was in my 20s,"

- on disappointing everyone by missing his deadline once again:

"My editors and publishers are disappointed, HBO is disappointed, my agents and foreign publishers and translators are disappointed ...but no one could possibly be more disappointed than me,"

- on the TV series having surpassed the narrative currently available in books and the TV series now spoiling content to fans of the books, he said:

"When you ask me, 'will the show spoil the books,' all I can do is say, 'yes and no,' and mumble once again about the butterfly effect. Those pretty little butterflies have grown into mighty dragons. Some of the 'spoilers' you may encounter in season six may not be spoilers at all... because the show and the books have diverged, and will continue to do so."

- on not giving more deadlines for the book:

"I am not going to set another deadline for myself to trip over," he wrote. "The deadlines just stress me out. 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."

- on how the progress of the book is going:

"Yes, there's a lot written. Hundreds of pages. Dozens of chapters ...But there's also a lot still left to write. I am months away still... and that's if the writing goes well,"

http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00092787.html

Season 6 of Game of Thrones is expected to air early April.

Good. Deliver them product when it's ready!

He should publish what he has and patch it later. Get with the times, George.

$1 for each remaining chapter.

hm.. I do prefer the books, but I guess I'll watch S6 episodes when they release anyway

while there might be several spoilers I doubt that will influence my enjoyment of the books, as what sets it apart is the clearly far more fleshed out characters and conversations (the exception being Olenna Tyrell)

I say take all the time you need George, only problem is your age. Other than that, I really don't care. Creativity should not be rushed in his case because he has to re-shape/shape his story to make it be as good/better than what he gave the HBO execs, and that may take time.

I'm sure he doesn't want people to have guessed his ending and character development; even though the community has an idea already of what is coming. Tough job for him because he took so long in the first place, and now he may need to take longer to meet his expectations and try to meet his fan's.

''A delayed book is eventually good but a rushed game is forever bad''
George R.R. Martin

Seriously, I understand him taking his taken but he's become a crazy slow writer. The second and third book actually followed the first one pretty fast. Of course after a Storm of Swords he has been having trouble on figuring out how to bring it all together. Back then I hoped this would be over after a Dance with Dragons but it seems like I was wrong and he stil has some issues.

This waiting has made me really get into fantasy novels o pass the time though, for which I'm really glad. Discovered some great series I might actually prefer now (Malazan, Gentleman Bastard)

I knew the time between releases would increase rather than decrease. Either way, I'm glad he came forward with an update. That was nice of him, despite the news being a bit disappointing.

I never expected it to be this year. If we're lucky it will be out a year from now. I'll watch the show and read the books when ever they come out. For me the official ending will be the source material.

I don't like the show much any more so I don't really care about no longer watching it. Once season 3 came and went with no Winds of Winter in sight it was clear the TV series would shoot past the books the only question was whether it would be the 6th or 7th book it would fly past.

So I will wait for the remaining books and try not to get spoiled by over eager show watchers wanting to talk about it. My only real concern is that GRRM will die before he finishes. He is getting on, and he isn't the picture of health. His publisher really needs to put the hard word on him and tell him to can all other projects and stop with the convention junkets.