There are a few things that can happen, irrespective of how “perfect” your work is: Silence. The world ignores you and your work. It never makes frontpage or g

There are a few things that can happen, irrespective of how “perfect” your work is: Silence. The world ignores you and your work. It never makes frontpage or gets starred by more than a handful of people. This is not a problem my itself. Unless your work is transient, it’ll help you compound. You’ll build on it, and if something you make later is useful people will still find the early work by association. Soul crushing criticism. Many people will point out that the work is crap, should not exist, or that you are crap, or that you should not exist. You can ignore the last two, and read and take lessons from the first two. Don’t fall into the trap of “oh the world does not understand my genius!” feelings, sometimes the crowd does know more than you, and sometimes you have an intersection of specialised knowledge and you know more than the crowd. Develop the wisdom to know the difference and the confidence to accept either conclusion. Being hailed as a genius in your own time. Some people will think you or your work are the best thing since sliced bread. If they think that about your work, thank them, enjoy the compliment, and then forget about it as quickly as possible. Everything you do till you die is a first draft, you and/others will build on it and remix it. If you rest on your laurels or let praise define you, you’ll get stuck. And receiving a different response for later work will be so much more difficult to handle. All of this easier to handle if you create all of your work for your own satisfaction as an end itself. Criticism and appreciation are simply signals from the outside world, like songs on the radio, you can do with them what you will. But it will all fade to silence. When you yourself finally fade to the void, only the question of whether you stayed true to your potential will matter. But that answer will also pass from this world.