Well, just a few months ago I was new to steemstem, as well. In fact, I was new to steemit itself. I enjoyed writing science. I didn't even know of steemstem and I started publishing. Just a few votes and fifty cents for a post that took me 2 days to write, would make me happy. Then I found steemstem in one of the science post I was reading. So I went to the discord channel to see what's its about. I added the steemstem tag in my next post. But, nothing. That did not kill my spirit to write stem. I interacted with the awesome mentors there, I figured how to use images the right way as steemstem was a commercial platform and I was using a commercial platform to write for the first time. Then another, but still nothing. Then I worked on my formatting and using markdown properly. Stopped experimenting with the bots. Nevertheless I continued writing, because I anyway don't know what to write other than science. Then it happened.
The thing is steemstem is anything but circle jerking. It's one of the most honest and dedicated community on steem. If you love STEM like you say that you do, don't give up. Write it. If you wonder why you are not getting upvoted contact any of us mentors there and we will be happy to help. I do hope you start writing STEM again and don't get disheartened by sheer lack of upvotes.
I was a tiny, itty bit of plankton who knew no one in steemstem, and I got an upvote. It was a stunning and uplifting experience. I was going to write anyway, but that did give me incentive. It showed the curators cared about content. And when my content made the grade, I felt really gratified. It's still the gold standard for me. I think this is the most objective curating team on Steemit. I appreciate all the work the team does.