Martin is certainly not an author prone to rushing his releases, and that’s one of the reasons for his success so far. He has clearly shown his fans that he knows what he’s doing and where he’s going with his writing, and even if he might sometimes take a little longer to complete his works, it’s well worth it in the end.
Because of this, many people are patiently waiting for “Winds of Winter” and discussing what the next book could be like on the Internet. It’s no secret that Martin has a large following of fans and they are always eager to talk about what the writer could be planning.
It’s also interesting to think about the possibility that the writer could be observing those discussions himself and taking some ideas from his fans.
If not that, then he must at least get some inspiration from what fans are saying about his work, as there are definitely some interesting and creative suggestions coming from his fans all the time. In some cases we’ve even seen fans bringing up possible plot developments that could have worked out even better than what Martin himself came up with, but of course we don’t know what the author’s long term plan is so it’s hard to make such judgments.