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  === Publication history ===
  Martin believes the last two volumes of the series will be massive works of 1,500+ manuscript pages each. He does not intend to separate characters by geography again, as he was forced to do because of the unpublishable length of ''A Feast for Crows'' original manuscript. But, as Martin stated in a 2011 interview, "Three years from now when I'm sitting on 1,800 pages of manuscript with no end in sight, who the hell knows". In 2018, he revealed that some of his publishers had suggested splitting ''The Winds of Winter'' into two books but that he was against it.
  In April 2011, shortly before the publication of ''A Dance with Dragons'' which took him six years to write, Martin hoped that "the last two books will go a little quicker than this one has" and estimated that it would take "three years to finish the next one at a good pace". By October 2012, 400 pages of the sixth novel had been written, although Martin considered only the first 200 as "really finished", the rest still needing revisions. In April 2013, Martin estimated that he had a quarter of the book. In the past, Martin has angered some of his fan base for repeatedly estimating his publication dates too optimistically; therefore, he has refrained from making hard estimates for ''The Winds of Winter'' final release date.
  In 2014, Martin's UK publisher, Jane Johnson, stated that the book would not be published before, or in, 2015. In April 2015, Martin commented along the same lines but he also said he would like to have it published before the sixth season of the HBO series ''Game of Thrones'' (which would cover material from the book) aired in 2016. In Autumn 2015, statements made by the Spanish editor and the Polish translator of the novel indicated that it was expected to be published in 2016.
  In early January 2016, Martin confirmed that he had not met an end-of-year deadline that he had established with his publisher for release of the book before the sixth season of the HBO show. He added that there was "a lot still left to write" and that completion of the book was "months away still... if the writing goes well". Martin also revealed there had been a previous deadline of October 2015 that he had considered achievable in May 2015, and that in September 2015 he had still considered the end-of-year deadline achievable. He further confirmed that some of the plot of the book might be revealed in the upcoming season of ''Game of Thrones'' but one of the showrunners, David Benioff, claimed that while certain key elements would be the same, the show would diverge from the book in many respects. In February 2016, Martin stated that he had dropped all his editing projects except for ''Wild Cards'', and that he would not be writing any teleplays, screenplays, short stories, introductions or forewords before delivering ''The Winds of Winter''.
  In 2017, Martin believed that ''The Winds of Winter'' would be released that same year. However, he also noted that he had believed the same thing would occur the previous year, and later that year he confirmed he was "still months away" from finishing the book, indicating it may not be published until 2018 or later, with ''Fire & Blood'', the book on the history of House Targaryen, possibly preceding it. 
  In April 2018, Martin confirmed that ''Fire & Blood'' would be published November 20, 2018, and ''The Winds of Winter'' would not be published in 2018; he indicated that ''Fire & Blood'' was the book his publisher wanted next. Since then, he has confirmed at least four times that he is continuing work on ''The Winds of Winter''. In April 2019, Martin commented in an interview that the writing "has been going very well lately", and in May he told his blog readers that if he did not have a copy of ''The Winds of Winter'' in hand for 2020 Worldcon New Zealand, Air New Zealand has his permission to imprison him on New Zealand's White Island until he finishes it, which some media interpreted as a joke. In October 2019, after a ''Game of Thrones'' prequel, ''House of the Dragon'', of which Martin is one of the executive producers, was announced, Martin stated that there was a lot of work to be done on the series but that he would not write any scripts for the series before finishing ''The Winds of Winter''.