Sharing Creations

Continuing on a separate branch of the last post.
Ok.
You've spent so much of your time and soul to make your creation as good as you possibly could. But the idea of sharing your creation with someone can be terrifying (Although it can also be really exciting).
What if it's not as good as you think it is?
What if everyone hates it?
The latter can definitely be a problem if you share things on the internet. There are plenty of people out there ready to say hateful things about how much you suck. I wish they'd just get a life instead of messing up other people's lives.
So, yeah. Sharing things can be terrifying. Start with people you're close to you, and who you trust. The internet is a... bolder step.
And it's always sad when people who are wonderful at creating just stop entirely because of the fear of failure. One of my teachers told me about a student he had who was a wonderful writer. But after a while, she got so hung up on trying to be perfect that she couldn't take imperfection. She stopped writing altogether. I wonder if she ever got over it...
Never expect perfection. Anything close to perfection takes many, many attempts. Don't be afraid to create something bad. Everything bad you do is one step closer to making something good. You just need to learn from your mistakes.
In a little book I read, it talked about an exercise used by some authors. They keep a log of what they write each day, and how good it was. And the majority of what they write they labeled as complete garbage. Even professionals will create plenty of garbage.
Work through your lame stuff, learn, and stick it out until you're proud of what you have. It's a lot of work. But that's what makes it interesting.

I don't generally worry about sharing my stuff on the internet. I post drawings and photos of stuff I made on my DA account. I know I'm no expert at either of those. And I don't more than a couple comments even on the things I"m proud of.
But I don't think I'd ever want to be really popular on DA, because the most popular artists are the ones that attract those jerks I mentioned before (plus they get hundreds of messages, and that looks terrifying). I'm content with my few watchers. Even if the only comments I get on my stuff are "awesome," or "it's so cute!"
I'm just glad that I'm improving enough that people actually like my stuff.
As for fanfic, I don't really worry about that either. I spend time on my fanfic chapters, and enjoy writing them. I'm generally pretty confident in their content and quality. At least as far as a single edit goes. Again, I may not get a lot of comments, but I have watchers that follow my stories and comment on my characters and conflicts. I'm always excited to hear from them.
But I don't go as deep into my fanfictions as my other stories. For fanfictions, I write one chapter, edit it, and post it. I don't usually go back to further edit it. For my other stories, I'm constantly changing and re-writing things, and am much more intertwined in everything. Plus, unlike fanfictions, my own stories take place in my own world with all of my own characters. I don't get to lean/stand on other creators.
Even so, I'm generally fine with showing my stories to other people (though I will not post them on the internet, because that could cause big problems when I try to get published.)
There are, admittedly, a couple people I'm kind of nervous showing my stuff to.