I’m not referring to myself with that title. I’m referring to something that has intrigued me for many years, and truthfully, I thought it was just a fanfiction thing. Over the past couple of days as I was deciding where to post FM since I never plan to charge a dime for it (I’d publish all my stories for free if I could get away with it because I’m silly like that), I came across a number of instances in which a writer had announced that they were either deleting or no longer continuing a title because they weren’t getting enough comments. And I don’t know, maybe it’s just me (is it?) but I don’t understand that. I absolutely understand wanting and needing to receive recognition from others for the work one puts into creating something to share publicly. We’re giving you a piece of ourselves, and yeah, it would be awesome to get feedback for that. However, I just can’t fathom dropping a project entirely because of the lack of that desired feedback. My stories are my babies, and if I knew that no one else would ever read them except for me, I’d still write them. I really would. Is that weird? Maybe it is. But I’d like to think not.
E*
Emma Peterson Writes 
First of all, I don’t know why but WordPress dropped you from my followed blogs??? WTF??? I never thought I’d be happy for Facebook.
Second, I can see both sides of this argument. While I would never completely drop something I’m working on, I might consider discontinuing posting it (probably until it was completed and revised, at which point I’d probably try again) if people didn’t seem interested in it, because part of blogging is posting things that people enjoy reading.
But I’m also one of those people who almost never comments on things I read. It doesn’t mean that I’m not interested in it, but just that I don’t really have anything constructive to say (you can really only say, “This is really good!” so many times until it starts to seem like you’re not actually paying attention), or I just don’t have time to comment.
So, I understand how it can seem like no one’s actually paying attention, so you want to move on to something people are actually interested in, but I also know that no comments doesn’t necessarily mean no interest.
Third, it’s totally not just you who would write things even if no one other than you read them. I write tons of stuff that I never actually post (for a myriad of reasons, but mostly because it’s fanfic and I’ve become so disillusioned with fandom BS that I never want to get pulled back into it in any way), but will reread a hundred times because I like it. Like you said, your stories are your babies.
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WordPress apparently broke up with me for a while because I had to start approving comments again for people who had commented before, so I’m not surprised it dropped me from your list. I wonder if that’s because I made the blog private for so long.
I used to be a big stats checker. I know some people just aren’t big on commenting or they forget or get distracted by something shiny (*points to self*) but if I wanted to know if people were reading a story, I would just check to see if it was getting hits and then go about my business. I just hate to see people get so discouraged about it because, to me, it detracts from the overall joy of writing a story in the first place. Plus, for people like me who are usually late to the party, it means I’ll never get to read the rest of something that catches my eye because the writer has already moved on to something else. I can’t imagine not finishing a story. It might take me a while (or possibly years) but if I like an idea enough to start writing about it, I have to see it through to the end.
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You would be surprised at how many people don’t actually know how to use the stats feature. Especially if someone is a new blogger.
Which is kind of another things I didn’t mention: It takes time to build a following! People seem to forget that. I mean, I was on LJ (and then Tumblr) for YEARS before I broke past even 100 “friends/watchers/whatever” with regular posting.
Now that I don’t have time to post daily, and I’ve had to start over from scratch after taking (an admittedly much needed) hiatus from social networking, I’m happy if I get 2-3 likes a post and I about crap myself if I get a single comment lol! People get discourage WAY too quickly, I’ve noticed.
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