Does Fanfic Make You Smarter?

[cbtreks]

I mentioned earlier that I cleaned out the sent mails from my fannish e-mail box. I read a lot of them before deleting or moving them - and I swear I was smarter three years ago. I wrote better, I had a better vocabulary, I was funnier and more articulate. I tried to figure out what made the difference - and it seems that's about the last time I wrote any fanfic as well. I don't write a lot of fic and a lot of what I do (did!) was drabbles and vignettes and other very short stuff so I wouldn't think it would make much difference in anything else I write, but it certainly seems to. It's not that I don't write anymore, but it's all school stuff or the basic stuff I do for work. ("I'm enclosing a check in the amount of $250.00 for payment of invoice number 123, a copy of which is also enclosed." Or if it's a more old-school attorney, "Enclosed please find my firm check in the amount of blah blah blah.") Apparently writing fiction makes me smarter - exercises my brain - in ways that other writing doesn't. (And I'm going to rectify the situation, even if I do nothing but drabbles from here on out.)

Do you write fic? I think most of my flist does. Does it make you smarter?