But given the time would you really spend it on novel-writing? I know I always complain about how if I had the time I'd be so much more productive, fic wise, but when I have had the time (winter break, etc) I never get very much done. It may be an incentive thing; when I write fic when I supposed to be doing something else, I get the thrill of doing something that I want to do over something that I have to do, plus the joy that comes from reviews. When I'm on break, well, everyone else seems to be, so the number of reviews drops, and there's very little else I can avoid. I actually have heard about a couple instances of fanfic authors making the leap into professional writing, which is fantastic if it's your goal to be a professional writer. If you're like me it just becomes increasingly more difficult to justify the time you spend on it to yourself. Of course I've used my own twisted logic to conclude that a) any kind of release and/or hobby is better than none, and especially if it's one where I stay safely inside my house and not out carousing, and b) any activity that teaches a person about writing for an audience, researching different aspects of history and/or canonical events, supplementing that research in a way that doesn't come off as just parroting it, and just in general makies you think so much about people other than yourself and how they would react to things cannot be all bad. So like anything else, as long as you work really hard at something and do the best you can, you're learning something.

Hee. Well. I like to see the broad scope of things, both into the past and present. I like learning about people, and you can learn about people from just about everything they do. The art, past and present, the politics, past and present. Economics as well. I rationalize it out to the whole learning from the past to make the present different, but in the end I think no matter what people decide to do there is someone in the past who has done the same thing in a comparable situation, with similar results. I mean in theory I like to learn "useful" stuff, but I think everything ends up being useful in ways you never expect so really...all knowledge is a good thing. I won't always seek things out, but I like those "Huh, cool" moments when you hear a bit of random trivia.