Thoughts? Opinions? My little secret..

I'm concerned that I won't hit my 100 books in 2011 mark. I was going full steam ahead there for a while and now I've seemed to plateaued a bit. It's not that I'm not reading. I am reading! I'm just not reading books, perse.

Since the whole ending of Harry Potter thing happening and all of my emotions regarding it, I've been reading fanfic. Fanfic being short for fan fiction, which is fiction about characters that fans write. There is fanfic for anything and everything, movies, books, TV shows, you name it. And to be honest while I've never written fanfiction myself, I used to "tea" when I was younger. "Teaing" was like role-playing. Basically a group of people who log onto an AOL chatroom (remember those) and role play their favorite characters. It was like collaborative play writing. My "teas" of choice were the Monkees. Yes, that's right, the Monkees. You know, those zany guys from the 60's TV show? That weren't really a band but then became a band? I would role-play them with my friends online for hours on end. I did this starting when I was about 10 and ended when I was about 12. It was really fun, we were all Monkees fans and I had a group of people that were my "friends" from all over the country. In fact I met my best friend online "teaing". It was weird when we found out that we lived in the same city (it wasn't a very big city). And even weirder when we met in person my freshman year of high school (her sophomore year) at a drama audition. We've been friends ever since (minus a year...we call it the Dark Times).

Anyways, so no fanfic for me, but I do appreciate it because I think that it's a great way for them to express their love of the characters and worlds that they admire. And as long as no one is profiting from it then I see no harm. So back to me reading all the Harry Potter fanfic... I used to read other sorts (WWF/WWE, Monkees) but stopped for the longest time, but then I realized that it would allow me to continue to experience new dimensions to the Harry Potter world and I liked that idea.

But.. I must confess I've become a shipper. Specifically Hermione and Snape. It's weird, I know. But it's been a blast to have the characters I love so much have more life in them. It's fun to see different stories and alternate universes and non-canon characters and characterizations. So recently that's what I've been reading. Harry Potter fanfic. Some of these stories are over 100,000 words. They are books in and of themselves but can I count them to my list? They aren't published, they aren't professional, but I can spend hours reading them. And I do. All night long (I'm awake at night and asleep during the day.. it sucks).

So, do you read fanfic? Do you have an opinion on it? Tell me about it!