I've dabbled a bit in fanfiction in my time, both writing and reading. Yep, there are a LOT of trainwrecks out there -- it downright scared me sometimes to see what was in some people's creepy little minds -- and a lot of just plain badly written stuff. (Those were hilarious, Compound.

) But there were also some amazingly well-thought-out, well-written stories, and it was surprising and delightful for me (as a full-time writer and editor in my "real life"

) to see how many talented writers there are where you'd never expect to find them. From me, that's high praise, because anyone who's ever had their work edited by me will tell you I'm EXTREMELY picky. But one of the best FF writers I ever read was a factory worker, and the absolute best one I ever read was an elementary-school teacher who'd never written anything before she started doing this. I never would have believed before how many gems you can find among all the dreck!