"Winterlyn Dow" is a nod to some of the most important people in my life.

I've always loved to write fiction. I started in 2nd grade, though I gave up writing for more than a decade before discovering fanfiction.

Books I loved: A Song of Ice and Fire, Lord of the Rings, Anna Karenina, The Count of Monte Cristo, Jane Eyre, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Beautiful Creatures, The City and the City, Gone With the Wind, The Book of Lost Things, Ten Little Indians, The Diviners, and The Chronicles of Narnia.

Fandoms I love: A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, Labyrinth, Star Wars, Harper's Island (weird, I know), Alice in Wonderland, the Batman universe (particularly that influenced by the Nolan Batman trilogy).

My fanfic philosophy: I'll read anything (from a fandom I'm familiar with) that is well-written. I don't care about ships, genres, length, writing style, etc. If it's good, I enjoy it. I particularly enjoy when an author is skilled enough to make me buy into a premise that I initially find far-fetched. I won't write in every fandom that interests me because I feel like I need a complete grasp of the works as a whole to write something believable (so, as much as I love The Dark Knight trilogy, there is SO MUCH to know about Batman/The Joker/R'as Al Ghul--movies, shows, decades and decades of comic books--that I don't know if I could ever understand it fully enough to do it justice). Additionally, if a source work is very well done, very tight, and has a satisfying conclusion, I'm less inspired to muck around with it (things I consider perfect or near-perfect don't cry out for fanfic IMO, so I won't bother writing it. That doesn't mean I won't read it, though). The exception may be ASOIAF--that series lends itself to FF for a few reasons, but namely that it's an incomplete work (thus far) AND the world GRRM has built is so vast and detailed, there are tons of nooks and crannies in it to explore!

Things that interfere with my ability to write/update fics: my husband and children, my career, college football season (Geaux, Tigers! LSU! LSU!), ennui, and guilt that I should be doing something else.

I have boards on Pinterest for most of my stories. You can find them by searching for Winterlyn Dow on Pinterest. I update them as I update my stories.

I'm on AO3 as Winterlyn_Dow, Pinterest as Winterlyn Dow, and tumblr as winterlyndow (my tumblr is super-lame, just a way to collect stuff that relates to my fanfic in one spot).

8/24/14 And now, The Assassin's Apprentice has *fan art*! I know! It's so thrilling! Pandorica 11 posted a really lovely drawing depicting the reunion in chapter 49 of the two most awesome and badass characters in ASoIaF. Check it out by going to deviantart and searching for The-Assassin-s-Apprentice-Fanart (since FFN no longer allows links in profiles, apparently).

12/7/14 The handsome man is awesome. Don't believe me? Just ask him. He'll tell you all about it. He has decided that he would like his own ASoIaF story. I told him not to be ridiculous. We finally compromised and he'll have a small companion piece that details some of the events of The Assassin's Apprentice through his eyes. It's called Morpheum. Check it out. If you don't, the handsome man will probably harangue you endlessly. The guy is persistent--trust me.

6/12/15 A lovely reader who goes by queveras on AO3 made a couple of graphics for the story. They are really cool. Check them out under her tumblr profile, fallenineveryway (I previously had them linked, but it seems FFN no longer tolerates links in profiles)

10/21/15 The Grey Daughter begins! Chapter 1 is up on FFN and AO3. Updating speed will be... variable (depending on inspiration and the cooperation of "real life"). I have a Pinterest board for this story as well and plan to add to it as I write the story.

1/6/18 I've completed the next in my New Orleans series of one shots (The City That Care Forgot). This one is called The Undeniable Temptation of the Dark and is Jaqen's POV during their French Quarter escapade, covering the exact same time frame as The Irresistible Seduction of the Light. I need to do a final polishing of it and then I will be posting. I have created a Pinterest board for this story and it is up already (you are welcome to view it if you don't mind spoilers). Once I've posted this one shot, I'll get back to TGD.

4/7/18 I posted a chapter from a Labyrinth fic today that I've had in mind for ages but just finally started writing. I have several chapters written (unedited) but it's not quite complete yet. Once I get that out of my system, I'll be back to TGD.

9/23/18 I've posted the next POV in my ASOIAF Modern AU/NOLA series, The City That Care Forgot. I'm not saying it's any good, but it was super fun to write. It picks up immediately after A Friend Too Long Left Wanting More. Fair warning, it's way fluffier than I usually go, but this is me we're talking about, so there is also the requisite amount of angst. Now that it's out of my system, I'll get back to working on TGD and Morass. I have created a Pinterest board for the new piece and it's listed on my Pinterest page under the story title The Inescapable Oppression of the Gray.

12/4/18 I've written a little of Ch 25 of TGD and a little of Ch 20 of Morass, which is actually only a few chapters away from being finished. I'm also making notes on part 7 of my ASOIAF modern AU/NOLA series. So, lots of irons in the fire, and with work being crazy and Christmas coming up, no idea on a time frame for any of these updates. But, I am working on them! For those of you who write and regularly update your WIP (particularly when you are juggling more than one at a time), my hat is off to you. I have no idea how you manage it!

12/31/19 Oh my gosh, I am so sorry for such a long lay-off! I pulled out ch 28 today and began working on it again for the firt time in MONTHS. I have the day off and no other claim on my time so I was finally able to do it and WOW, have I missed this! I love living in this world and plotting Arya's course, I can't believe I let it sit for so long! I hope I continue to have time and can finish this very soon. Thank you all for your patience! Oh, and Happy New Year!

1/12/20 I posted another one-shot in my modern AU ASOIAF series. This one is about the brief relationship Arya and Aegon had while she was away at college. There is a Pinterest board for it as well. I'm working on ch 30 of TGD now.

3/16/21 Just a quick update to say I haven't abandoned anything! I am, however, in need of a new laptop and extremely busy with work and my kids making the transition from virtual learning to in person school just in the last week. Once my laptop situation is sorted and my kids are settled, it's back to writing!

5/6/21 Hello all. I wanted to drop a quick update to say once again that I plan to finish my stories, unless fate intervenes with an errant bus or a heart attack. Previously, busy life and laptop issues stood in the way of claiming free time for writing. Oh, how I wish things were only that "complicated" now! A couple of serious family emergencies have arisen that require all my energy, physical and emotional, be spent on them, and every second of my time. I don't know when that landscape will change for me, but when it does, I'm definitely getting back to writing!

12/5/21 I wanted to give an update--the issues that have kept me from writing (serious real life stuff) over the past half-year persist and eat up most of my waking hours not spent at work (and sometimes those hours too). I think about my stories all the time, but honestly have very little free time due to the need for me to handle these issues on top of raising my children and working full time. However, in that little bit of free time I *do* have, I find myself gravitating toward Westeros (and New Orleans) and wanting to get started on the new updates. All that to say, once again, my stories are not abandoned. They live in my head and I do make notes on ideas and think on them regularly, I just haven't had the time to sit and pull all the ideas and notes and research together into chapter updates. I hope that changes very soon. I miss Arya's trek north (in the Assassin's Trilogy) and I want to see what happens with the handsome man, Jaqen, Arya, and Aegon in New Orleans. My sincere thanks to everyone who is hanging in there with me, and for the reviews/comments that let me know my stories aren't forgotten. Really, sincerely, thank you so much.

1/10/23 I posted ch 1 (of probably 10) of my "The Invitation (2022)" fanfic. I watched the movie and found it inspiring. The fandom appears to be very tiny--only a few published fics about it on AO3. I'm doing my part to add to it. Since there's no listing for it on FFN, I posted it under "Misc" (misc movies). I'm silmultaneously working on ch 58 of TGD but the inspiration of "The Invitation" was too consuming to ignore.

3/13/24 sorry for the long absence. After the *ahem* rather mixed reception of ch 60 of TGD, I took some time to reflect. I have never been on the receiving end of so much ire for one of my chapters, so after licking my wounds, I had to take some time to think on it. Was this really so unexpected? Had I really gone off the rails? Had I somehow committed the sin of making my beloved characters behave in ways that were nonsensical in the context of my story? These are the questions I've been asking myself. I'm at the point where I'm 80% certain I haven't, but I haven't made my final judgement yet. Though this story has taken twists and turns I never expected, the backbone of what happened in ch 60 has been in my mind since the beginning of part 2--really, the end of part 1, when I decided I wanted this to be a trilogy. The road to the endgame always led through Aegon and Arya agreeing to marry. To have them do the things I have always planned (and not just them, but others as well, including Jaqen and HM), they needed to hit this mile marker. I thought I set it up plausibly. Many of my readers *definitely* disagree. That's a hard pill to swallow, and it has made me take a break to be sure I'm hitting the right notes as the story progresses. All that said, I've not given up on this story. Even if by the end I am the only one reading it, I will finish it (barring death or disability rendering me unable to write). I don't know when the next chapter will be posted. Life is busy--career, children, tax time... Still, as ever, I think of this story daily, and I'm just about ready to get back to it. Thank you for your patience.

7/28/24 After many years (7, I think), my laptop finally bit the dust about 3 weeks ago. I was terrified that many of my more recent (meaning: from the past several months) notes about my in-progress fanctions had been lost. I knew I could go on but thought it would be more difficult with the loss. I do back up my documents to a thumb drive, but it's probably been since the last chapter of TGD was posted that I did so, and maybe even before that. I was disheartened, but nonetheless, I finally bought a new laptop today. Lo and behold, thanks to the wonders of technology and the cloud and a microsoft account and all that, it seems my documents have been preserved as of the time the laptop bricked on me. I am so relieved! Hopefully, I will now be able to continue TGD as well as Tooth and Nail without having to re-invent the wheel.

11/19/24 I know. I know. But I'm alive, and always thinking of my unfinished stories, and making notes, and getting inspired. It's just that real life is, in this moment, very hectic. I do have a short trip planned to Louisiana this weekend and am spending a day and a half of it in New Orleans, so that may prove inspiring for the NOLA series. I'm also listening to TGD as an audiobook on speechify right now (which allows me to re-read and refresh the details I want to call back to while still getting other things done, like making meals for my hungry children, doing laundry, etc) and what I am finding is scattered typos (it's apparently easy to overlook them the 1000 times I read/edit/proof before posting, but not so easy to overlook when they are being read back to me). So, I'm also correcting as I go along and then reloading the corrected chapters on here and AO3. Hopefully, that will be completed sometime before I slip this mortal coil and I'll have an error free copy of this the story uploaded. At any rate, I definitely plan to 1)finish TGD then start on the third and final part of the story, 2)complete Tooth and Nail, 3)add another installment of the ASoIaF modern AU, The City That Care Forgot, 4)possibly add to the Labyrinth fandom (I just love it), and 5)maybe write a short piece about Victor Aguilar, who is the Penguin's sidekick in the HBO limited series about the Batman universe. But, maybe not. I had an inspiration while watching the finale of the series, but it may just live in my head and not find it's way to paper. Anyway, thank you all for your patience and support!

3/7/25 Holidays, family business, career, and just stuff (dealing with insurance company and contractors, which is a huge time-suck) have conspired to keep me away from the world of fanfiction, but I have resumed my re-read and making corrections to TGD as I find typos (which is so much easier now that I have Speechify reading the chapters aloud to me. Errors are more glaring to the ear than the eye when you've read over it 1,000 times before). I've just completed ch 17. It's giving me even more of a soft spot for the Blackwood family, all over again. Oh, and as I was driving this week, I heard the Wailin' Jennys version of "The Parting Glass" and I could so clearly picture a portion of an upcoming chapter (62? 63?) involving Arya being surrounded by her loyal men and those she loves, it was quite inspirational. I'd like to get back to writing as quickly as possible.

4/9/25 I discovered a week or so ago that my corrected chapters of TGD, when uploaded, were eliminating italicized phrases somehow. Well, the phrases remain, but they are no longer italicized. I think this makes it less clear when things are part of the internal monologues of characters, but I did finally discover a (somewhat tedious) work-around. So now I will be re-uploading chapters which are hopefully devoid of typos but still include italics (this is not a problem on AO3, where I can simply correct as I go along without messing up any font). I have corrected through chapter 33 but need to restart the whole upload process on FFN. In addition to removing typos, the re-read (well, listen, really) is helping me get back in touch with the core of the story, which I hope leads to an easier task of writing out the next few chapters. A word about Speechify--it has been an extremely useful tool in this task, but I warn you, if you decide to use it for fanfiction, I have noted a few glitches. It sometimes skips words and sentences, even 2-3 sentences at once. This is rare, but happens at least once per chapter. Not a big deal if you are reading along (as I am, so I can make corrections) while listening, but might make some things unclear if you are simply listening. Also, there are times when it adds an "and" or "oh" or "um" or just random letters to start a sentence where it has not been written. It's mostly occurring with dialog, as if the app is interpreting the open quotation mark as a word or sound. There are also some occasional idiosyncrasies of pronunciation. Like, instead of saying the word "it", the app might say "I. T." And it will pronounce "Uncle" as "You-In-uncle" for some reason. Not aways, but at times. Again, no big deal with reading along, but when not, it can be confusing.

4/18/25 TGD chapters are corrected through ch 45 and re-uploaded. When I complete the review, my hope is to then get the next chapter (62) up.