George R.R. Martin has already blogged on his Live Journal that he aims to release the sixth installment in the "A Song of Ice and Fire"("ASOIAF") series, "The Winds of Winter," by late 2018 or early 2019.

But more recent posts from the prolific author confirm that "The Winds of Winter" will not be coming in 2018 and is still being actively worked on by the author. Unfortunately, a whole host of other activities have been pulling him away from working on "The Winds of Winter" solely. George R.R. Martin has stated that he is currently torn between working on his "Wild Cards" series, a few episodes of "A Game of Thrones," and his "ASOIAF" spinoff, "Fire and Blood." "Fire and Blood," a spinoff with a Targaryen flavor, is targetted to be released in November.

While Martin is known for the long years between the publishing of his novels, the delay on the release of "The Winds of Winter" has been the longest time between installments of the series. "A Dance with Dragons," which was released in 2011, took six years to publish after "A Feast for Crows". "The Winds of Winter" has yet to have a solid release date seven years after "A Dance with Dragons".

While Martin continues to deny that he is prevented from accomplishing "The Winds of Winter" due to a bad case of writer's block, he does drop a significant spoiler that many of the series's fans who don't read the books would sorely miss out on. According to Martin, Lady Stoneheart, the resurrected Catelyn Stark, will play a significant role in "The Winds of Winter".

The last we see of Lady Stoneheart is her potentially ill-fated crossing of fates with Brien of Tarth and Podrick Payne at the end of "A Feast for Crows," a scene which the HBO TV Series "A Game of Thrones" has largely deviated from by the confirmed death of the show's Catelyn Stark, portrayed by Michelle Fairley. No doubt that any material that Martin has planned for "The Winds of Winter" won't be showing up on the show which seems to be coming to a close.