A Song of Ice and Fire fans have been worried for the last few years that George RR Martin’s other projects, especially his Game of Thrones spin-off TV shows commitments, have massively slowed down his focus on finishing The Winds of Winter.

And now the 75-year-old has shared just how overwhelmed he is by his mountains of work.

Writing on his blog, the author shared how he’s been travelling in Europe for a month this summer and never takes his computer with him, on which he writes his books and answers his emails.

He then got onto his progress with the long-delayed new Game of Thrones book and admitted he’s also been writing Fire and Blood Volume 2.

Martin shared: “Nor did I find much solace in my work. Writing came hard, and though I did produce some new pages on both THE WINDS OF WINTER (yes) and BLOOD & FIRE (the sequel to FIRE & BLOOD, the second part of my Targaryen history), I would have liked to turn out a lot more.

“My various television projects ate up most of those months. Some of that was pleasant (DARK WINDS, and THE HEDGE KNIGHT), most of it was not. The stress kept mounting, the news went from bad to worse to worst, my mood seemed to swing between fury and despair, and at night I tossed and turned when I should have been sleeping. When I did sleep, well, my dreams were none too pleasant either.”

Martin added: “I had so much on my plate that I seriously debated whether I should cancel the whole trip [to Europe] so I could stay home and fight on. I am glad I decided against that. I was so stressed out that I doubt I would have accomplished much anyway… and the trip turned out to be a blessing, balm for my bruised soul… But when we finally got back to the Land of Enchantment I had a thousand emails waiting for me. I also managed to bring covid back home with me, after picking it up at worldcon. It was a mild case, thankfully, but even so, it put me out of action for a week or so, with the worst sore throat of my life.  (I am fully recovered and testing negative once again, thank you. Don’t get covid, boys and girls, it is no fun at all). And, alas, the moment I opened my computer again, the stress came rushing back. I managed to put my problems aside for a month, but they were still waiting for me.”

Here’s hoping the author can unload some of his workload onto his team so he can focus on finishing his magnum opus, A Song of Ice and Fire, which has A Dream of Spring to go after The Winds of Winter.