Personally, it's because I consider any fic that makes it out of WIP status and reaches posting to be a success, no matter what the metrics on it are.
I had a *3 year* block where I could barely even poke at WIPs and nothing got posted, no idea why.
So to me, posted = success.
This is dumb and vulnerable and I may regret asking and delete, but here goes anyway: fic writers, how do you deal with the heartbreak of having a project you were very excited about absolutely flopping? I had a bunch more planned & written. I can’t bring myself to open the doc