George RR Martin is perpetually busy. The 76-year-old has been working on his penultimate A Song of Ice and Fire novel since 2011, as fans continue to wait for updates on The Winds of Winter.

The author infamously doesn’t write when travelling. Instead he exclusively works on his DOS computer with a 1987 WordStar 4.0 word processor, which lives at home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

This summer, he took a month off for a trip to Europe, which included visiting the Belfast set of the upcoming Game of Thrones spin-off show, The Hedge Knight.

The miniseries is based on the first of his Dunk and Egg short stories, set 90 years before the events of A Song of Ice and Fire.

Now in his latest blog post, Martin has addressed his writing schedule, including the long-delayed Winds of Winter.

Martin wrote: “It may shock and surprise my long-time readers, but I actually delivered The Hedge Knight [1998] by the deadline Silverberg had given us.

(Barely. Stories for LEGENDS were due by the end of the year, and Bob was very very serious about that.  He warned us that anyone who did not have their story in on time would be out of the book. The Hedge Knight landed on his desk on December 31. And that only because I used express mail. Whew. Later, Bob told me that three of the other writers came in on the last day too, though, so at least I wasn’t last).”

Martin added: “By the time I finished the story, I was in love with Dunk & Egg. Still am. I have written a lot of stories over the decades and created a lot of characters.   They are all my  literary children… some more than others… but Dunk & Egg were special. I  mean to write the rest of their tales as well … in my copious spare time after I finish THE WINDS OF WINTER, yes, yes, I know.”

Fans can breathe a sigh of relief that the next Game of Thrones book remains his priority.