Sorry, I was just confused because a whole bunch of stories above mine had really low stats.
Envy (not the person, although maybe the person), is a deadly sin for a reason. It's easy to look up and want what others have. The hard thing to do is to actually comb through competition and figure out why.
Or even more healthy, be happy with successes of any size as they come.
Just a suspicion on Trending. It's good to a have a jump in stats. So a steady climb in stats (even if high) isn't good, compared to spikes.
Or I may be wrong. Just random guessing.
I generally have steady growth and have hit #1 twice now.
My suspicion is that it's an internal total that counts up until you get on trending.
Lets say you get TP (trending points) for every comment, view, like, and reader your story gains.
This counts upwards. Then when you hit trending it removes points.
Maybe trending #1 is -10,000 points, and trending #10 is -1,000 points.
Then, while you are on trending, you gain no points for that whole day (so you don't get repeat trends).
This is just my personal theory only backed up by anecdotal evidence.