Take solace in your friends and derive your hype from your discussions with them. Open up to them about your fic as you make progress, get a bit annoying, and you’ll be able to anchor yourself there instead of on The Big Number.
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