While technically I've been writing on and off since high school, I'll only admit that what I wrote since '03-'04 is mine. I actually started writing again because of Fool Moon; Jim inspired me, what can I say? Anyway, I started writing a book as a first person, modern fantasy, stream of consciousness novel, got 40 pages in and realized how bad it was and stalled. Later I eventually pushed on and finished the book, but I've done massive rewrites to it.  I've since finished two sequels, and I have plans for a fourth sequel, and started a seperate high fantasy book. My favorite bookstore owner in the world edited my first book recently, and he's helping me prepare for trying to get the thing published. So much work! The basic plot is a wizard goes to college, meets a vampire who becomes his best friend, then tries to help stop someone from taking over the world. Plenty more than that happens, as it's a 150k word book, but it's complicated, so you'll just have to wait and see if I manage to get published. 

My first book I didn't bother with an outline. It got finished eventually, but I ran into a GSM problem and couldn't quite figure out how to end it either. My second book had an outline and I finished it much more quickly and directly. I also didn't keep to the outline, but I thought the outline helped direct my writing much better. My latest book also had an outline that I didn't strictly follow. Not quite done that one, but the outline helped again. My opinion: the outline can't hurt, and you can certainly ignore it when it gets in the way. 

Fanfiction is something you should write, you should cherish, then keep to yourself that you ever wrote it and likely burn it, just to make sure. Sometimes having a platform to start from is a great spring board into writing. But never let fanfics see the light of day. Please. Won't somebody think of the children?