Posting that ask /is/ attention seeking. It makes you feel better for a second maybe but it also makes you look desperate for praise. Except... praise is hollow & meaningless unless it comes unprompted. I only post asks about fic if others might be interested in the answer but reply privately otherwise (I keep praise to myself.) Everyone already /knows/ where to find your fics, there's a link in the sidebar. By all means post about your fics. But don't hide your motive behind "anon" praise.
so... in your opinion, I am I meant to not reply to this anonymous message because by replying I am attention seeking? I'm really not sure what you mean to achieve here. Is having someone pay attention to something I'm saying something I should avoid?
FRIEND, LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING. I AM A WRITER. I AM DESPERATE FOR PRAISE. IT MAKES ME FEEL GOOD. IT MAKES ME WANT TO WRITE MORE. IT MAKES ME WANT TO LIVE A HAPPY LIFE AND ENJOY EVERY MINUTE BECAUSE I WANT TO SEE SOMEONE ELSE BE PROUD OF ME.
You are wrong, anon, and I'm a little worried about everyone who says "stop spreading your praise around" because clearly you don't know what praise can do for you. It can make your eyes shine and your diet better quite by accident, and it makes your smile wider and it makes you be nicer to people, and it makes you feel like you're doing okay in life. By sharing it I can achieve several things. Firstly, some people (for whatever reason) enjoy seeing my replies to messages. I like that they like it, that's awesome. Secondly, other things happen, which happen in a specific order: more readers > more feedback > more motivation for writing > more self-fulfilment > more likelihood of me recovering from years of illness and actually making something of myself.
And right now I know you're thinking "oh look now she's talking about chronic illness to garner sympathy", but may I remind you that you messaged me anonymously, and if I ignored the message then you would not even begin to understand how important it is for me both personally and professionally that I write more stories and become a better writer. The messages people sent me over the years have literally saved my life. I like seeing them, I like reading them when I'm feeling down. It's harder if not impossible to do that if I reply to everything privately. I like being able to file everything under a tag on my blog. It's simpler and quicker to reply publicly rather than privately. I already have a lot of trouble scrounging up the energy to reply to messages at all, let alone save them somewhere externally.
...Seriously, the fact you're even driving me to think about "how can I please these anons while still maintaining a consistent place to put all my messages" is fucking ridiculous. I don't live to serve you, anon. I fucking want to publish my fucking messages, it's that motherfucking simple.
You said: "praise is hollow & meaningless unless it comes unprompted". This is probably true. But my apparent ~prompt~ for praise is writing a fic that someone liked, and they wanted to tell me they liked it.
...For serious, are you even seeing what I'm seeing here?
"I only post asks about fic if others might be interested in the answer" People are interested, okay. You might not be, but other people are. You see a billboard advertising soap, but you don't need to buy soap because you're a self-cleaning metal android, do you tear down the soap advert and tell the person who pasted it there that they're shamelessly asking for attention?
"(I keep praise to myself.)" Good for you, anon. You're humbler than I am. I would like to be humble, but other times I would really just like to say to the world: hey, I made a thing. Please look at the thing, you might like it and it would mean the world to me.
"Everyone already /knows/ where to find your fics, there's a link in the sidebar." All right. Imagine that you walk into a bar. It's a bit crowded, there's animated people everywhere and they're a little flashy, and there's buttons hovering left, right and centre. Your drinks and food are served, but you need an extra fork. You know there's a signpost for the cutlery somewhere but there's so much else going on that you can't find it. "The cutlery is over there," someone helpfully says, pointing. Oh yes, you think. Unless that person had pointed it out you might not have seen it. In fact you might've just gone on with your meal without a fork at all, because you didn't know the bar even had forks. (The forks are a metaphor for my fics, by the way.)
"But don't hide your motive behind "anon" praise." I don't actually know what you mean by this so I can't give you a sarcastic answer.
I hope you have a lovely day, anon. I hope someone tells you you picked your outfit really nicely today, or you did very well on your test, or you have pretty eyes. I hope you go home to your family/parents/significant other/roommates, and you tell them "this random stranger said something really nice to me today". And I hope you find that sharing your praise is significantly more satisfying than keeping it to yourself. Even if it's just because the person who complimented you deserves some recognition for the nice thing they said.