Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, @writingamigo! I think all of us have gone through these stages. My very best friend @knircky introduced me to steemit in July 2016. I didn't earn any money in the beginnings, however I kept going. There are days like the ones that you mention when you spend hours working on a blog post which makes less than $1 in the end.
The key is to keep going.

Steemit doesn't give away free money.

That's it! However, many people out there do believe that. And that's their reason to join. They should be informed better... Some of them are now :-)