Hundreds and hundreds of pages
In a new post reflecting on 2020, George R. R. Martin offers some thoughts on the pandemic, politics, and a year filled with personal losses. But GRRM points out some good things about 2020, and in particular highlights progress he made on The Winds of Winter:
I wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages of THE WINDS OF WINTER in 2020. The best year I've had on WOW since I began it. Why? I don't know. Maybe the isolation. Or maybe I just got on a roll. Sometimes I do get on a roll.
I need to keep rolling, though. I still have hundreds of more pages to write to bring the novel to a satisfactory conclusion.
That's what 2021 is for, I hope.
I will make no predictions on when I will finish. Every time I do, assholes on the internet take that as a "promise," and then wait eagerly to crucify me when I miss the deadline. All I will say is that I am hopeful.
Hundreds and hundreds of pages done, with hundreds more to go. It's not the announcement we were all hoping to hear, but it remains far better than the alternative.