I know we should just write the best quizzes we can, learn from the editors, have fun, don't worry, etc. But this still worries me. I'm sure there are quizzes below what the site wants more of, that are just not as much fun for players.

I wonder if there's a broad range of good/excellent percent (60%s, 70%s, 80%s?) where it's known that one can relax and feel "good enough" and a range where one needs to really try hard to improve? I have this personal insecurity that I'm filling the site with dreck when a quiz drops into a certain decade of percentages, and I just wonder.

I think there are things for everyone. If you love a topic and feel it is fun to write about it, it will be a good quiz for those who feel the same way. Not all quizzes will be sunnies... Not all that are popular immediately will remain that way. Just write about things you are genuinely interested in, take the advice you get from the editors to heart, notice things that make quizzes you play fun (ones that are written by others) and file away those techniques for use in the future.

Watching those ratings really closely is a lot like weighing yourself three times a day when on a diet - useless at best, and really counterproductive. They're really kinda meaningless until you have at least a few hundred plays, and even then don't tell you all that much. Use them as one piece of information, along with player comments, editor comments, how long your quizzes take to be edited (we do not rush to put dreck online, believe me), and how much fun you are having.

If you have any sunnies, you're doing fine. If you have sunnies on about one third of your quizzes, you're in the top tier of authors.

As agony said, the ratings are not necessarily a great guide to the quality of your quiz. With only a few ratings, one poor rating from someone who just didn't like that quiz, or was just in a bad mood, will have a disproportionate effect on the percentages. The more quizzes you get online, the less the ratings seem to matter, in my personal experience.

Thanks everyone. Great answers, and they really help me to get a sense of what's important.