George R. R. Martin Might Finally Finish The Winds of Winter While Social Distancing

George R. R. Martin is certainly keeping himself busy while practicing social distancing. The 71-year-old author wrote on his blog Tuesday that he is “writing every day,” trying to finish The Winds of Winter, the sixth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series that has been nine years in the making.

Martin’s book series was adapted into the HBO hit Game of Thrones. Martin did not finish the last book before the series was set to end, so showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss took creative liberty over the final seasons.The last book that Martin released for the series was the fifth installment, A Dance With Dragons, in 2011. The author has been writing The Winds of Winter ever since.

“For those of you who may be concerned for me personally … yes, I am aware that I am very much in the most vulnerable population, given my age and physical condition,” reads the blog post by Martin. “But I feel fine at the moment, and we are taking all sensible precautions. I am off by myself in a remote isolated location, attended by one of my staff, and I’m not going in to town or seeing anyone. Truth be told, I am spending more time in Westeros than in the real world, writing every day. Things are pretty grim in the Seven Kingdoms… but maybe not as grim as they may become here.”

“Some days, watching the news, I cannot help feeling as if we are all now living in a science fiction novel,” Martin continues. “But not, alas, the sort of science fiction novel that I dreamed of living in when I was a kid, the one with the cities on the Moon, colonies on Mars, household robots programmed with the Three Laws, and flying cars. I never liked the pandemic stories half so well … Let us hope we all come through this safe and sound. Stay well, my friends. Better to be safe than sorry.”

If Martin keeps up a good enough pace, he might even be able to complete the seventh and final book in the series, A Dream of Spring. Hope springs eternal!

You can read the rest of Martin’s blog post right here.