One of the hardest things when you're starting to take feedback from others, is staying in control of your own art.
There will be people with more experience, education, clout, insight, etc. and it will be REALLY tempting to let them dictate where your story should go. But you're not here to write their story--you're here to write yours. Their feedback is important, but your own voice is the most important.
Being a beginner is hard. It's that rough beginning state that makes some people say, "anything creative isn't a real job." They're wrong--it absolutely is a real job--that's why it's so hard. You're trying to be good at a real job, with no experience or training, because you're a beginner. It fucking sucks, but everyone who wants this job has to start there.
It's even harder because, most likely, while you're a beginner at making this kind of art, you are likely not a beginner at consuming this kind of art. You know good art--good writing--when you see it, and you have very little tolerance for bad art. Unfortunately, all good art starts as bad art. Not every sentence will glow. Not every idea will mesh.
Art always starts out with a lot of blank bullshit that nobody wants.
The job is taking control of that blank space and making something cool out of all that nothing, and it can be intimidating as hell, but the only way to get good at it, is to start doing it, and to not stop until you get there.
I'm not saying you shouldn't seek advice from people more advanced than you. I strongly believe that feedback is necessary to fulfill your full potential. Because great art is about connecting to others, and you can't know if you're connecting if you don't take feedback.
Everyone inevitably makes the mistake of giving power over their art away--at least briefly. It's okay. We've all been there.
The sad thing is, the reason why we all make that mistake is because we're chasing that connection through approval--the kind we can only get when we're as non-objectional as possible. As quiet, and non-descript as possible. And the connections we get when we make art like that aren't real--they depend heavily on our continuing to stay small and unobtrusive. Valuable connections can't live like that.
A lot of us hear, "relationships are give and take," and all we internalize is, "relationships are about giving," and just totally forget that taking is supposed to be an equal part of the equation: taking up space, taking time to talk about your own needs and feelings with the people who want to do the same with you. And that's an essential part of art too--the taking you do in art is making it your way, instead of the "right" way. The best art, when the artist "takes," it also feels like they gave you something--a true, pure piece of their soul, unedited, unashamed. Incredible.
It's a difficult balance--a balance you can only learn by trying--by being in the driver's seat, and driving.