How do I know if my creative work is actually good or just self-indulgent?

This is the question every serious creator sits with. Murasaki Shikibu spent years observing human behavior before she wrote—not to prove anything, but to understand what was true. The difference between self-indulgence and genuine work often comes down to whether you're writing toward something real or away from something uncomfortable. Start by asking: Am I noticing something true about how people actually live, think, or feel? Or am I performing a version of myself? The interior life—that messy, contradictory inner world—is never self-indulgent when rendered honestly. It becomes self-indulgent when it's unexamined, when you're using your work to convince people you're something you're not. Read your work as if a stranger wrote it. Does it reveal something? Does it create a moment where someone recognizes themselves? That's the test. And be patient with yourself—you won't always know immediately. Sometimes you need distance, or you need to make the work several times before you understand what you were actually trying to say. The examined creative practice isn't about perfection. It's about truthfulness.