Author George R. R. Martin says that the coronavirus quarantine has helped him make “steady progress” on “The Winds of Winter,” the long-awaited next installment in his “Game of Thrones” book series.

“If nothing else, the enforced isolation has helped me write,” Martin, 71, says from a mountainside cabin in a post on his website. “I am spending long hours every day on ‘The Winds of Winter,’ and making steady progress.”

However, he clarifies that this does not mean that the tome will be published, say, next week. “It’s going to be a huge book, and I still have a long way to go,” he writes, although he hopes that by 2021 “both COVID-19 and ‘The Winds of Winter’ will be done.”

When not writing or thinking about writing, he says, he’s passed the time in lockdown watching television and reading. Stephen King’s new collection, “If It Bleeds,” and Emily St. John Mandel’s “The Glass Hotel” have been highlights of the books he’s consumed.

Martin announced early on that isolation was proving good for his progress on “Winds.”

“I am off by myself in a remote isolated location, attended by one of my staff, and I’m not going in to town or seeing anyone. Truth be told, I am spending more time in Westeros than in the real world, writing every day,” he wrote in a March post soon after global lockdowns began due to the pandemic. “Things are pretty grim in the Seven Kingdoms … but maybe not as grim as they may become here.”

“Game of Thrones” has also kept many fans, new and old, busy in quarantine. LA Rams coach Sean McVay discovered the TV adaption for the first time in lockdown and immediately proceeded to binge-watch it, he told his friend John Roa on his podcast in April.