Why I went looking for fan fiction

[stgulik]

Last fall, I was in the midst of finishing a long-delayed - and I mean seriously delayed - graduate thesis. My major was Public Policy. I am here to tell you, there are few majors in the world less funny than Public Policy. And with my stock-in-trade being funny, the thesis was going nowhere fast. I was classically burned-out.

In an effort to regulate my time on the project, I promised myself if I worked x number of hours on the thesis, I would let myself read frivolous things afterward, with impunity, as a reward. But what? Well, I had finished all the Harry Potter books, had read Book 7 about five times through, and was wishing at the back of my mind I could revisit all the characters I loved.

So I went searching for Harry Potter fan fiction. The first place I landed was fanfiction.net. I quickly learned how to weed out the good from the bad just by reading the introductions! I'd have to say, 95 percent of what's on ff.n is just dross. But, oh, that other 5 percent is just what I was looking for.

Did my compromise with myself over thesis time really work? Not usually. But I still managed to get my thesis done and accepted by the deadline!

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