I had just happened to watch a video the other day about all the hanging plot threads from the show ending, and I think that's what bothers me. With any epic story, odds are that normally no ending could ever live up to what our hopes are, especially at an individual level, but there are now so many questions we'll never get answers to and characters some of us invested many years of our lives thinking about just got done so dirty. Brienne, Jaime, The Hound, Varys, Littlefinger, the Children of the Forest, anyone from Dorne or the Iron Islands, the Facless Men. Everything just got such a weak wrap up. For so many people and events that got a huge emotional buildup, nothing seemed to matter for any character in the end. It feels like the showrunners lost interest as much as GRRM did and called it a day.

Exactly. Imagine if season two started with Stannis's shadow murdering Renly. Then next episode Stannis attacks Kings Landing and Rob marries Talisa. Third episode is the Red Wedding. Fourth episode is the Purple Wedding. Fifth episode is Tyrion's trial and Oberyn's fight. Then we end with season short with the battle at the wall and Jon dies.

That would be an action packed but ultimately terribly confusing and paced season. All those events, when spread out over several episodes and seasons are excellent and exciting moments.

The first three books (roughly first four seasons) are the end of the first act of the story. The next two books are just the start of the second act of the story. The world grew. The world expanded. A time jump was added and then removed, and that's where the problems started. The show needed to start working towards an ending, but the story wasn't going that way.

I think in a world where the television series was never made, George would have likely finished the series by now. It's difficult to sit in your house and type out a story while everyone is outside your house having fun and yelling at you to come outside.

This isn't to absolve George. He's a professional, he should have finished, but I get it.

Thing is, this book isn't even going to have the ending yet, and at this point he doesn't exactly have a high bar to clear to make improvements on how GoT approached the ending. There's also nothing wrong with outright making changes to the ending if he wants.

He's clearly been in his own head about the series ever since after the fourth book. He still likes writing about the world, so my best guess is whatever progress he makes on Winds is occasional efforts to try to shed that emotional weight and free up some headspace for the side stories he likes more.