I'll look forward to the new piece, Abbey. Didn't you also post something relatively recently (last couple of months or so)? I remember making a note to myself to read it, but then never did. But I'll scroll back through the old posts to find it.

I'm so glad you found a fangirl classmate. There's just nothing like discussing fanfic with someone who totally gets it. As you learned with your family, an awful lot of people do NOT. I once had a student who wrote "Malcolm in the Middle" fic. I forget how it came up, but when she learned that I knew what fanfic was *and* even liked it, she was thrilled. At Homecoming, she dragged her mother over to me, saying, "Mom -- here's my teacher who knows all about fanfic! See, I *told* you it wasn't weird." The look her mom gave me suggested she not only thought fanfic *was* weird, but she was pretty sure I was, too.

I keep the whole fannish thing a deep, dark secret from my family. Old as I am, I think my mom would react to my fanfic about the same way yours did.