I'm a Creative Writing graduate. One of my peers has 20+ stories published in magazines and another has multiple poems published. Meanwhile, I haven't published anything.
The people in the Critique Threads like my writing. But I haven't sent anything out to magazines yet, because I want what I send out to be near-perfect. I don't want some shit-tier meme stories shitting up my legacy, so some critic in the future can laugh at me.
What does it all mean?
When a dilettante has done what lies within his capacity to complete a work, he
usually makes the excuse that of course it‟s as yet unfinished. Clearly, it never can be
finished because it was never properly started. The master of his art, by means of a
few strokes, produces a finished work; fully worked out or not, it is already
completed. The cleverest kind of dilettante gropes about in uncertainties and, as the
work proceeds, the dubiousness of the initial structure becomes more and more
apparent. Right at the end the faulty nature of the work, impossible to correct,
shows up clearly and so, of course, the work can never be finished.
t. goethe