George R.R. Martin releases a new chapter -- but the book still isn't done

Winter is coming — but it's still not here yet.

George R.R. Martin posted a sample chapter from his long-awaited book, "The Winds of Winter," on his website this week. But that doesn't mean the finished draft is coming any sooner, he wrote.

"You want to know what the Sand Snakes, Prince Doran, Areo Hotah, Ellaria Sand, Darkstar, and the rest will be up to in 'Winds of Winter?' Quite a lot, actually," he wrote on his blog. "The sample will give you a taste. For the rest, you will need to wait."

Fans of Martin's "A Song of Fire and Ice" series, which became the hit "Game of Thrones" television show, have been eagerly awaiting the new book since the last one was published in 2011. "The Winds of Winter" will be the sixth book in what will eventually be a seven-book series.

Martin has admitted that the book is taking him longer than expected to write. At the start of the year, he posted on his site: "Here it is, the first of January. The book is not done, not delivered. No words can change that. I tried, I promise you. I failed."

The show, meanwhile, has moved past the books and is venturing into territory readers haven't covered yet. Martin confirmed that because of this, the show's plot and books' plots will diverge in some ways.

For one, "The Winds of Winter" book will contain a twist that can't be replicated on the show — because the character involved was already killed on TV, Martin told IGN.

"Ideally I would have liked to finished all seven books and have the story complete, but the show moves at a faster pace than I do," Martin said in the interview. "And that's partly because I'm a slow writer, and I've always been a slow writer."