1. A very wise woman told me something important: don’t write for the people who hate your work, as if you could somehow persuade them to like you. Write for the people who love your work.
2. There will always be people, especially online, who will hate your work. You can listen to their opinions, and perhaps learn something from them. Most often, you can learn that these people are morons.
3. If you get a terrible review on Amazon or Goodreads, sometimes it helps to read that person’s other reviews. Their favorite book will almost always be the fifth volume of a series set in an ancient realm, where the Dark Faeries are battling the Daemon of Skoor.
4. Worrying about other people’s opinions is self-defeating and useless. But it’s a surefire way to fill an afternoon.
5. Always remember: everyone who hates your work is grotesquely ugly. And not just on the inside.
6. Everyone who hates your work is an embittered, failed, jealous writer.
7. Everyone who hates your work is being paid by the government to undermine you, as part of a top-secret program to upset writers.
8. Everyone who hates your work lives in their mother’s basement and spends even more time trolling the internet than you do.
9. The people who love your work are perfect angels who only love the greatest writers.
10. The people who love your work are not just friends of your parents. That’s totally a coincidence.
