With "Game of Thrones" currently off the air and George R.R. Martin remaining mum on the release date of "The Winds of Winter," it's no wonder that a number of preposterous rumors about the novel have surfaced recently.

Millions of readers have been waiting years for Martin to wrap up and finally publish "The Winds of Winter," the controversial sixth installation of his "A Song of Ice and Fire" series and it seems they will be waiting longer.

It has been months now since the HBO series wrapped up its sixth season, and production has already started for season 7. But there's still no word on when "The Winds of Winter" will be released. However, there have been plenty of rumors as to why the book is still not in store bookshelves.

One rumor that has certainly raised eyebrows and caused a fair amount of panic among fans is the news that Martin had lost the manuscript for the novel. While several sites picked up on the news, most pointed out the absurdity of this happening. As one site explained, Martin might be old-fashioned and is still using a DOS word processor, but his work is automatically saved to a remote server daily.

There are also speculations that the book's delay could be because Martin has opted to work on a "Game of Thrones" prequel instead. The author recently revealed that he has pages of material about Westeros' history and his palpable excitement about it has caused some to worry that he might focus on that instead. Again, this is unlikely to happen as Martin had said that he has dropped all his other writing gigs to focus on "The Winds of Winter."

The truth of the matter is, Martin is a slow writer. He has admitted that several times already and has apologized to his fans about it.

Regardless of how fans of the show or the novels feel about the delay, if Martin isn't finished with his book, then he isn't finished. There's nothing one can do but wait patiently.