You can go for three or four years without ever seriously writing fanfiction. You can say, "That's all behind me now. I write original fiction and nothing but. From here on it's dreams of a-list authorship and adoring fans. One day, they'll be writing fanfiction about MY stuff! Won't that be a gas!"

And then you purchase, from a small used book store out in the middle of nowhere, a beat-up copy of King of Fighters 95. It's like the film version of Neverending Story: doors of imagination are opened up. Your Inner Geek, like the third eye, opens and everything is tinted with the spectral hues of polygonal dice and Japanese animation.

There's no stopping it. Don't fight it. It's wonderful.