Serious Writing and Not So Serious Writing For Fun

I do a lot of serious writing.  I have written nonfiction here: http://www.thehistoryfiles.com/author/jenny-zeek/

and I have been the runner up in a writing contest here: http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/events/anne-boleyn-day-competition-2012/its-the-eyes-that-haunt-you-by-jenny-zeek/

and I even get a little quote in Susan Bordo's "The Creation of Anne Boleyn" not that I really wrote anything, I just answered a question.  So that's my more historical sort of serious side.  I also write this blog, occasionally, admittedly I don't update nearly as often as I should.  What can I say, I'm busy being a mom and a teacher and a wife and a million other things.  Then there is the dorky side of me.  Besides Anne Boleyn and historical fiction novels I have a small obsession with The Hunger Games.  I love all three books in the trilogy.  Katniss and Anne Boleyn are my heroes.  I like shooting a bow and arrow.  I think learning how to throw knives well would be really awesome.  I own throwing knives and throw them at the fence in my backyard.  I get regular updates from fan sites on my facebook page. I have the same sort of obsession with Lord of the Rings, hey, I like well written original stories with characters that are well rounded and realistic in that they think and react like real people to stressful situations.  Lately I have been doing some not so serious writing.  It's kind of pointless, but it's an amazing way to write background stories for characters that I love but did not create.  It's a way to create new characters and put them in a world that I find totally interesting but did not make up.  I have been writing (gasp and cringe) fan fiction.  It's really fun.  Normally I would turn my nose up and sneer at someone who did such a thing, like the woman who wrote those horrible 50 Shades books.  I'm not sure what that story had to do with Twilight but I understand it started as a piece of Twilight fan fiction.  I've never read Twilight and I admit in a very ashamed way that I looked at 50 Shades to see what all the hype was about but got bored after about 20 pages.  I can't deal with weak, submissive, groveling female protagonists.  Especially in badly written porn novels being sold as romance, a sadistic and abusive romance at that.  Please give me an outspoken dignified queen or a deadly unwilling killer any day.  But I digress...

I have learned that there are some different types of fan fiction, most of which I do not like.  There are the types that pair different characters and make them have some sort of romantic involvement.  Dumb.  There are the retellings of the original book from a different point of view.  Dumb, we already heard the story once.  There are those that take the characters and throw them into some sort of modern day high school or a situation that involves a boy band.  Very dumb, so stupid that we cannot even comment.  Then there are some really good stories, authors who take the characters who were not fleshed out in whatever novel that they came from and give them a personality and a story to tell.  Authors like Gethsemane342 (everyone uses a pen name) http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1183552/gethsemane342
who writes beautifully haunting stories that leave you in tears and begging for more.  So, in an effort to fulfill my never ending need to write I've been having fun writing in The Hunger Games fandom.  I don't know whether I am ashamed or proud.  I have a little following, which I am proud of.  I get awesome reviews, which I am proud of.  But it's fan fiction, which sort of makes me feel like a total dork.  But whatever, it's really fun.  So here are my stories, http://www.fanfiction.net/~clover80
two of them are in a state of perpetual progress.  What do you think, is it a terrible thing to write fan fiction?