It sure has been a long, long wait for the release of The Winds of Winter, the sixth novel in George R.R. Martin's epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.

But it's hard to know when it will be out as even Martin himself doesn't seem to have a clue. And it's been repeatedly delayed.

No wonder there are so many theories and rumors going around as to what's causing all the delays. And the latest theory is an interesting one that comes from Nerdist which speculates that Martin might be deliberately stalling with The Winds of Winter because he wants to get A Dream of Spring finished up first and make sure everything is right with that book.

The fan at Nerdist reasons that Martin must already be finished with the book as he said already back in 2012 that he has finished writing some of the chapters to The Winds of Winter in 2010 and then in around 2015 reportedly said it was a few months away from being finished.  

So the wonders what could possibly take so long to get the book wrapped up if it had been close to being finished before. It's a good question and they pose that the answer to it is that Martin is holding off on releasing The Winds of Winter because he wants to make sure that the anticipated seventh and final book the series, A Dream of Spring, doesn't hit upon any plot problems.

If he gets that book done and is happy with everything, he still has a chance to make any necessary changes to The Winds of Winter so that the story all fits together. But if he brings out The Winds of Winter first, then he's beholden to it and it could make writing A Dream of Spring and coming up with his desired ending a lot harder for him if there's something that he feels no longer fits with what he wrote in Winds of Winter.  If he holds off on publishing Winds of Winter, he's got time to change it all if necessary and then release it.

'A Song of Ice and Fire boasts an incredible large universe, with so many characters and plots that it doesn't seem possible to keep track of all of them,' wrote superfan Michael Walsh on Nerdist.

'The closer he gets to the end, the fewer opportunities Martin will have to work his way out of any snags in the canon; less story time limits where he can go.

'Martin may be holding onto The Winds of Winter in case it needs some narrative tweaking based on a problem he hits toward the end of the Song of Ice and Fire epic.

'He obviously wants to nail the landing on the defining work of his career, and this could be the best way to ensure that happens."

Or it may just be that Martin's having a hard time finishing the book! The Express reports that a video surfaced on Reddit of Martin talking to his friend, Outlander author Diana Gabaldon, in which he revealed he was having second thoughts about a character he killed off and whether killing them off had been the right decision.

She apparently said in the video that she asked him how the new book was going and he replied that he was 'having all kinds of trouble.'

'And he said, 'You ever kill somebody off that you later realised you needed?' she said. 'I said, 'no, George, that's never happened to me!"'