i know you're almost as big an SK nerd as i am, but back when he was writing It, he gave an interview with Playboy and he was talking about how his new book (It) could run as high as 3000 pages. it might have been too. when the editors get a hold of a manuscript they chop big chunks out of it to prevent it from bloating into a monster slog and keep the story moving. his finished product was over 1000 pages, imagine how much was left on the cutting room floor for it to have been that long after it was edited. with Martin, he might have a shit ton of words on pages, but if its a bunch of farting around, the editors will gouge that shit into something coherent. maybe its only 300-400 pages after edit. the story is nowhere close to being finished. i guess if he wanted to be cute. he could push to have his unedited stuff be pushed out and say, here ya go!
then thats his other problem, he gets super butthurt when people shit on his work. he also might have had to redo a lot of it because fans were pissing on what D&D did and it was close to how he was planning to write the characters. or he didnt like that fans were guessing where all this was leading and so he got mad and started over in a new direction. there could be a bunch of reasons why he isnt close to finishing, now that he's writing junk for HBO for the next five years. that pretty much confirms he's taking a "break". its been ten years, add another 5. he doesnt care.