Hi and Welcome to Steemit...

Where your hard work can be devalued on a whim and your confidence trampled underfoot by ONE person who thinks he/she can wield their power without any regard for the person behind the targeted account.

Almost fifteen months ago I stepped onto this platform to test the waters on the advice of a writer friend from Facebook.

At that time, I was Chief Editor at AWESOME Magazine with more than 100,000 hits per month, I had a few novels and short stories published and a few mentions on IMDB - in my opinion, I had a lot to bring to the platform. I arrived with nothing and worked - for nothing at first - and that grew slowly and steadily.

I’ve shared my work, and used Steemit.com as the first and only platform on which to share all my writing. I’ve written an anthology with stories written exclusively for Steemit.com and published it. I’ve written a short novel exclusively on Steemit.com, writing every single day, gaining traction and a lot of followers.

I published the first two books to be priced in SBD and I gave them away at SteemFest2

I’ve tried hard to help new users (and not so new) and I’ve always responded to the genuine replies on my blogs.

I’ve also introduced and mentored a number of people on the platform because once they arrive, it’s a big scary world out there and I think we need to help newcomers to grow their accounts.

Basically, I’ve been a good Steemian (I hope).

I’ve had a few good pay-outs but not many over the $200 mark (if any) but I’m not greedy, I don’t complain when I receive a couple of dollars for a post – swings and roundabouts.

I flag spammy comments and plagiarised blogs and I do try to upvote good, ORIGINAL content because I do believe that’s where the value lies for Steemit.com

I’ve been to meets and both SteemFests because I believe the platform and the concept is awesome and I’m in talks with some pretty big-hitters, trying to get more wealthy investors to join the platform. All this is on the quiet and not been announced because there’s no point until something is set in concrete.

I’ve made many friends (I think) but so far, I’ve attracted support from few ‘whales’ for my writing – perhaps that’s because I’m not talented enough?

@ned @roelandp @kevinwong @sneak @andrarchy @ericvancewalton @sirwinchester @gtg @opheliafu @ezzy @rea (to name-drop a few).

Maybe it’s because my posts have not been seen? Perhaps I don’t write about things that interest most ‘Whales’? Maybe ‘Whales’ believe only crypto should be featured on steemit?

Or maybe my face doesn’t fit?

I don’t buy votes and I haven’t bought any delegation Steem. I powered down a few months ago but I didn’t cash it out and I have since re-powered it all back up.

Now, 11 of my posts have been flagged.

Here is the quote from that post:

@michelle.gent : Disagreement on reward, Posting a novel page by page, getting ~65$ for ~20 views.

I’m posting a 10,000 word short story at 1500 words per day (less than a week's worth of blogs) and I’m writing another novel exclusively here, and for that I’m being penalised by @transisto because he/she believes it’s his/her call on that.

Out of 400,000 Steemit users, my posts are all earning too much and my work doesn’t deserve that amount of reward.

Yes, I’m a creative person and I am usually exceptionally strong – minded and willed – but this has hurt me. I’m not that strong where my talent is concerned. In fact, I’m fucking fragile and all I can see is that my talent and hard work is not good enough and I really am not as tough as I appear (I do appear to be tough, especially when defending my beliefs and friends).

For what my opinion is worth, @transisto, maybe you’d have been better off UPVOTING original work to show other writers what can be achieved. Rather than your first votes on my blogs being flags, removing reward. Maybe you could have encouraged my work and given an upvote once in a while?

I’m taking myself off here because I’m no longer willing to put my hard work and my talent up for the scrutiny of people who believe they can take away what someone else finds worthy of reward.

If there’s one thing that will drive away writers, it’s attacking their talent. If there’s one type of abuse that will keep people from joining, it’s the threat of this kind of act – one person acting as self-appointed gate-keeper for all the talent on Steemit.com.

If you’ve only driven away one writer, it’s one too many but if you’ve driven away any others who have been watching to see how long this takes to crash and burn, well done. It took a little under fifteen months.