Well, It Took A While · 7:11pm Jan 20th, 2015
I finally put out that story that I said I was just about to publish… last month. The worst part is, I only really did a bit of touch-up on the published chapter in between then and now, so the delay was completely unnecessary. 
It's a shamefully short chapter, but putting it out is as much a motivator for me as it is an enticement for potential readers. The confidence that comes with a single innocuous upthumb is amazing, especially considering I've been called a pessimist by everyone I know.
There is some good news regarding this story - sort of. Over the last week, I may have finally gotten into the habit of writing a little bit every day; something I've long been lacking. Is it focused on a single story? No, not yet. But it's progress, and this progress will hopefully transfer into progress on the stories that I have out.
Now, since this is so cheery sounding, I feel I have to complain about something. Said something can be found right on my User Page:
These are the four stories I currently have published. There are, in total, four downthumbs on these stories. Want to guess how many of these downthumbs came with comments? I bet you know the answer.
I wouldn't be so aggravated by a lack of comments to go with these votes, if it weren't for the most recent one. Just one downthumb on a story with only two votes on it sends the fic from “this could be good” to “don't even bother” in a single click. If someone wants to condemn my story to the bowels of the site like that, they could at least give me the courtesy of saying why they did so. But nope. They just hit and run. For all I know, this guy just downvotes for the fun of it; the feeling of power over the fate of other people's work. In previous debates on whether voting should be tied to comments, I was firmly against the idea. But now, I'm starting to change my mind.
Huh, that got rather negative rather quickly. Um… think about puppies? Cuddly, yummy, delicious puppies? Maybe not.
Hopefully, the next update comes in less than a month. That seems like a reasonable goal.
Not long ago, all of my stories got a single downvote in the span of a few minutes.
Someone disgruntled with who I am saw fit to decrease the overall appeal of every single one of my stories. Why? Hell if I know. I know the mods can tell who downvoted and when and ban users for mass downvoting, but I question the downvotes that suddenly all cropped up around my stories and if justice has been served.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter to me what the upvotes and downvotes signify; if someone finds my story interesting, they will read it regardless of where the votes lie. That is my prerogative, at least, and I get the feeling that users don't care so much about those ratios because they know how meaningless those ratios really are. I've seen plenty of poorly written sensationalism fics, and I have gone in and torn those fics down a few pegs, getting about six paragraphs in and already bordering on essay length about how poor the story is, and cutting it off because I'd already skipped half the errors and I was sick of having to read their drivel. 90% upvotes doesn't mean anything if the fic is still garbage.
On the other hoof, there's plenty of well-written fics that get downvoted literally because the author isn't well-liked. Never mind that the story is great, unique, and thoroughly enjoyable--it's still 70% downvotes because the author has their own opinions and doesn't buy into sensationalism.
For those interested in reading your fics, I don't think that a couple upvotes and downvotes will deter them.
Next time you see a Naruto fic and ask yourself why it's so much more popular than your story, remember that it's because you actually have self-respect and believe that not all works of art are recognized as such by the average 16-year-old reader.