How to deal with unexpected attention?

Right. Sooo... this story is popular all of a sudden. And it's caught me totally off-guard.

As any of you that read the Author's Note for the first chapter already know, I never planned for this story to be a primary project. When I first conceived of it, I thought that it was going to be a sandbox story where I could experiment with different writing devices and styles. As is often the case with my stories, however, an actual plot grew out the things I was throwing around, and so this was the result.

On the one hand, I don't want to divert attention away from my main project, which is currently undergoing editing for its Beta Release (you can check out the most recent patch notes in my previous blogs). I still want to stay on track to have that thing finished by the end of the year at the latest, so that I can move on to other things. With my courses right now, that is a goal that will require focus.

With all of that said, though, I feel that I would be doing all of you a great disservice if I just ignored this story, which appears to have developed a bit of a following. I can try to put up semi-regular updates as the schedule permits, but again, no guarantees. I just want to say how absolutely grateful I am to all of you that took the time to show me this support. I'm still in a bit of shock concerning the amazing response that the story has gotten. Take a look at some of the numbers yourself:

Upvote % (calculated over views): 8.6%
As a comparison I took a browse through the stories that show up in the "Top Rated" section of the site, and was able to establish that 20% is about the upper bound for this statistic. So this number is definitely nothing to laugh at.

Upvote : Downvote Ratio: infinity
To still have no downvotes after 10 days is shocking to me. Maybe people all of a sudden got a lot less opinionated about the things that they read in fiction. More likely, I wasn't bold enough in the assertion of the premise. I certainly like to think that if I'm not pissing off someone, then I'm not going far enough to really catch people's attention. I thought that some of the assertions concerning the Equestrian government and financial system would be enough to raise a few eyebrows, but apparently I was wrong about that. So be it, this problem can be fixed later.

And, after 10 days, the Views/Day average is still sitting strong at 47.2. Of course this number is only reliable over a moderate term, but the fact that favorites and likes are still trickling in even after 10 days is inspiring. Thank you all.

So, in closing, I will do my best to do this story a bit of justice in the future. A very appreciative thank you goes out to everyone that took the time to read it, and even more to those that gave it an upvote or favorite. And to the four commenters, I will extend particular gratitude. There is so much more left to this thing, and I can't wait to get it out there.

May Celestia's light shine forever,
cursedchords