Hopefully Martin is going to reevaluate the way he works, and he’s going to pick up the pace in the coming months. His fans seem to still have a lot of patience, but there’s only so far the author can go before people start getting frustrated with him.
Things could actually reach a point where Martin’s fans meet the next book with negative responses just because of the delay in its release, regardless of the actual quality of writing the book has. This will be a terrible fate for “Winds of Winter”, especially after the book has been in the works for so long, so hopefully we aren’t going to see such a situation.
It’s mostly up to Martin now. The author should sort out the issues with his writing and finish the remaining pages of the book, or in the very least he should address the situation in a meaningful way.
Some fans have even started making darker jokes about the book – and the series as a whole – “wondering” if they are going to see it finished before the author passes away. And while it might seem like a distasteful joke, one has to wonder what could actually happen if “Winds of Winter” is still not out a few years from now. We strongly hope that the situation won’t reach such a bad state though, and that things will be brought under control soon enough.