nanowrimo_lj | Writing a fanfic

As some of you may (or may not) remember from my other post on here, I decided to write fanfic for NaNoWriMo (which, by the way, thanks for being so awesome on that post!). I actually ended up getting a completely new idea, so I will be starting from scratch, unlike my plan before to take a pre-existing fic and continue to work on it (but not count any of the previous words). However, as November gets closer, I'm starting to have doubts. I have yet to actually WIN NaNoWriMo, and this year I am flat out determined. I've participated for three years, and after three years I think I've finally found what works for me and gets me to write and what doesn't work.

I feel like the pros of writing a fic is that it will require very little research on my part, something that has hindered my writing (NaNoWriMo related or not) in the past. I also know the characters well, and well, I love to write them. I'm attached. I've actually found being attached to my story has HELPED me in the past. I got my most word count writing a story I was dearly in love with and had been working on for nearly 10 years. The other pro is that, comments motivate me to write. And I plan to post this fic as I write it, because I feel that will get me writing more. I've found this to be true for other fics I've written.

Yet, I'm still having my doubts. Last year I had the most success skipping around in my story and not writing in a linear fashion. I can't do that this year- well, I CAN, but it will cause problems since I want to post it as I go along and I want the word count to match up with what is posted. I'm mostly scared, though, I'll get stuck in the plot, lose interest, and not be able to motivate myself to write further. Because even though I've done some planning, I don't have every chapter and every plot point planned out. I've decided to mostly write as I go along and get ideas that way, which I'm not sure if that's a bad idea or not.

I realise these doubts may not be fic related, but general NaNo related. So what I was wondering (after all this ranting) is: who here has written fanfic? Did you win? And did you find it harder or easier than writing your own original fiction?

Apologies if this question has already been asked this year, there are so many posts I have trouble keeping up.