Yuletide!
Fandom is a-flare with Yuletide excitement!
Part of me thinks that yuletide is not the sort of thing that needs pimping--in some ways, it is the ficathon, my flist is crazy with posts talking about what they signed up for or what they will sign up for. But also, it occurs to me that some of the people on my flist who are here because they know me from high school or college or who are otherwise on the outer limits of fandom might be interested in playing along. Because the exchange focuses on "obscure" fandoms--from Homer to Shakespeare to Austen, from Orson Welles to Stanley Kubrick, from lyric poems to webcomics--it tends to have a more "literary" feel. The stories don't always "read like fanfic" (whatever that would mean), so if there's something about fan culture or the typical tropes of fanfiction that keeps you away, that needn't be a problem. And plenty of the fandoms are in the public domain, if that's been worrying you.
Maybe you shudder at the thought of writing a sappy sex story about Buffy and Angel (and fanfic has much more to offer than just that, but that's a different conversation for a different day) and run screaming from Mary Sues. (Maybe you have no idea what a Mary Sue even is.) Then maybe a Sherlock Holmes pastiche is more up your alley. Or a look at what a few characters from Shakespeare were doing off-stage. An introspective piece about Baudelaire's childhood. A revisioning of a beloved tale from your childhood. Take a look at the fandoms in play and see if there isn't something that is to your taste, something you'd really like to read or to write. It's a diverse and ecclectic list, and I'm willing to be that there's something on there for everyone.
Come join the fun!