In truth, the only thing which matters is that you get satisfaction from what you do. To express creatively in a way which is true to one's Self and Soul regardless of what others may think, is the only course to any kind of satisfaction. Affirmation is mere ego stroking. Most writers are never published and most of those who are published are like brief, feeble flames which quickly die. Those who achieve some fame or recognition may also be extinguished with the next book. A few become the 'darlings' of the publishing world and endure and one or two of them actually endure because they can write. In a world where publishers no longer bother to employ real editors; where writers are taken up because they are thought to be money-earners... the standard of writing is irrelevant ... and preferably, young enough so there will be years of money-making in them, writing per se: is no longer honoured in the way that it was.
What has made it all so much harder is the rank commercialisation of most publishing houses and the swallowing up of the small, often more adventurous publishers, into the big publishing machinery which swallows, chews and spits out that which is cost-effective rather than that which is art.
But such is the way of the world. Swings and roundabouts. On a positive front self-publishing has become increasingly economical and it offers a real opportunity for most writers. As does the internet.
I have long thought that writing is the most difficult of all of the creative, artistic expressions because it is so solitary and so limited in use if it is not published. You can paint, or pot, or weave, or sew and create something which you can display, sell or give away. But not a manuscript. In a fit of pique one could use it as wallpaper but it defeats the purpose. The manuscript has been doomed to linger at the bottom of countless dark drawers .... at least until Blogs came on the scene.
As someone who loves to cook it seemed to me that an unpublished manuscript was the equivalent of preparing a banquet with weeks and weeks of painstaking, solitary work and then, when the end result is offered, no-one eats. It is 'too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too salty, too sweet, too complex, too simple, too little, too much ...... too many things for too many people to be appreciated by anyone. Except the author and that's why authors must write exactly as and how they choose because the only gaurantee they will ever get is their own satisfaction. And, even if that means never being published, that satisfaction will be far more rewarding to Soul and Self and Psyche.