Fan is short for Fanatic

I have ADD so I have the attention span of a squirrel and the memory of a sieve.
In regards to most things, except books. I can, and will read for eight hours straight. When Deathly Hallows was released I bought the book at midnight and had it read by seven the next morning. Then was quite annoyed that no one else I knew was quite that insane, and I couldn't talk about it with anyone. I hunger and thirst to know everything that is in the books that I love, and so I will read them again and again. Of course, that may have something to do with the fact that I read alarmingly fast and tend to miss minor details if I am not careful.
I have tendencies to OCD, like most everyone else. I loved the article I read about how when we are infatuated our brain acts the same way as it does with any other kind of obsessive behavior. Thankfully I only go crazy over works, and distance them from the artist who created them. I can love a song/book/movie without caring a whit about the musician/author/actor/director who created it.
At the moment I am re-reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Motivated by the release of Breaking Dawn and the Internet leak of the draft to Midnight Sun. I have looked at her website, to get a copy of said leaked draft, and because there is a lot of other fun stuff on her website. The only fan mail I have ever written was in high-school and only for an assignment in my English class. Yet I find myself with a strange urge to write her. Just because she sounds like such a nice and interesting person. But I am sure that there are a lot of people like me out there, and she hardly has time to get to know them all, and I am interested in friends, not some nebulous contact with celebrity. An autograph is just ink.
However, that is not the point of this post. The point is my OCD about Twilight and Midnight Sun.
(For those of you who do not know, Twilight is a novel written in First-Person Perspective. Midnight Sun is a companion volume, with all of the same events just from another First-Person Perspective.)
I can imagine that a project like this would be so frustrating and gratifying at the same time. Frustrating because in the past few years she has grown as an author and to go back and revisit an old work would be maddening, seeing all of the places where you could improve things. Passages where you didn't say exactly what you wanted to say, and you are forced to write within that framework of dialogue. Aggravating because of the knowledge that there will be OCD people, like me, Who will read both volumes simultaneously trying to gain a deeper understanding of the characters and-- looking for inconsistencies. (I found two words that were off and several typos, but this was just a draft) Gratifying because while you cannot change what was said, you cannot change one characters perceptions of events, you can clarify your intent through the medium of another character's thoughts. Improve your perception of the original volume without publishing a new edition.
I know that I tend to get obsessive over details in books. I really do. In one of my favorite mystery series, the author refers to one character as someone's sister in one book and several volumes later, she is referred to as marrying into the family. It is a tiny detail and yet it bothers me. David Eddings is the worst, though, so many things changed between The Belgariad and its companion volumes Belgerath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress. Whole timlines changed, it drives me crazy. Yet I like the series so much I continue to read them again and again.
I had assumed that Stephenie Meyer would hand out selected passages of Midnight Sun to trusted fans, just to check the details, because no one can check for details better than crazed fans. I had also figured that she would do it in smaller segments, in case those fans proved less than trustworthy. But then, I also understand the fanboi mentality. If an obsessed fan finds out that they are trusted by the object of their obsession, it tends to make them so proud that they want everyone to know, and in the process sometimes they are called upon to prove that fact, and info gets leaked. Or alternately that trusted fan shares the info with his/her trusted friends, and do on and so forth. Either one of those trusted friends proves less then trustworthy or it turns onto a scenario like the game Gossip and the message changes down the line and the need for secrecy is lost.
Thanks to my ADD, my current interest will wane in a week or so and I will find something else to be passionately interested in. Then in a few months my interest will turn back this way, it is always this way with me.