What you describe is what all art is: a radical act of faith. And faith always involves risk. But perhaps that’s why we invented art: to give ourselves something so beautiful that it not only inspires faith -- but sustains it.

Ultimately, the point of getting feedback is to test new work against the sensibility of people we trust, even — no, especially — when their responses are challenging or unexpected.

Whether apprentice or expert, a writer must find a way to outwit the superego’s goal of paralysis -- to unhand it of its main tool, a prism that makes one’s efforts look paltry, often in direct relation to one’s reverence for the greats.