The other day I made a mistake and Googled ‘Rebecca Strong’. Not the first time I’d done it of course – in fact, since my novel came out I’d been Googling myself and the name of the novel regularly. Sometimes even between 74 and 137 times a day. In case I made the New York Times bestseller list, you know?
This time though – instead of coming up with nothing – the search pulled up a few results.
Unfortunately none of those results were from the New York Times. Or from the Publisher’s Weekly. Or even from the Kirkus Review.
Instead they were unlicensed translations into Russian of the article I penned for Quartz about why I wrote my novel under a pseudonym. Followed by hundreds of comments.
Angry comments.
Insulting comments.
Abusive comments.
Hateful comments.
Comments that made me go like this:
Lesson learned.
DO. NOT. READ. THE. COMMENTS.
Stories and Colors 
Uhm, will you please read this one comment? 🙂
Don’t mind them, as if you have to pay for every negative thought you get from them (and you have, if you waste your energy)! It’s just impossible to do something public and not get some shitty comments. I once got this for posting a picture of a sweet pink toy bunny, something that I find amusing even ten years later, since few things seem less hateful than a pink bunny. Better write than read comments 🙂 (Except mine, I mean :))
Thanks! I promise I read yours. I did. 😉
I’d tell you not to worry about angry nutjobs, that it doesn’t matter what uninformed opinionated strangers say on the other side of the planet – but you’re not going to read this, so I won’t bother.
Hahaha, thanks! I always read the comments I approve. 😉