Author George R. R. Martin recently spoke with Zap2It and admitted that he now faces two different kinds of pressure to get "The Winds of Winter" out as soon as possible, hopefully before the "Game of Thrones" TV series catches up to the events in the unpublished book.

"On one side there's a pressure to get the books done. My fans want to read the next book and my publishers want it, my editors want it ... " the author stated during the interview. "But then there's the other pressure to make it good."

The site WatchersOnTheWall also conducted a statistical study to determine the most likely date that Martin would finish the sixth book in the series. By their observations, the most likely scenario is that "The Winds of Winter" would come out by January or February 2017.

"I really wanted to finish 'Winds of Winter' before the end of the last year, but obviously I failed, and part of that is the numbers of interruptions that I have," the author said. "I'm taking steps to try to cut down on it." 

Martin had recently posted on his blog page, "Not a Blog," that he would be skipping out on several of this year's conventions such as the San Diego Comic-Con in order to get the book done as soon as possible. Many have speculated that this announcement means he could be done before autumn. 

This would allow the book to come out just before the sixth season of the show. However, it still means that the show's seventh and allegedly final season will come out before the last book, "A Dream of Spring," is released.

David Benioff, showrunner, appeared at the recent Oxford Union and stated that despite the show spoiling the events and ending of the series for fans of the books, the two will explore things differently and deliver different impacts to their respective audiences.