Hi Jim,

I’ve been writing for a while, mostly posting my stories on here, but also on Amazon Kindle. Unfortunately as of late, I’ve been getting a lot of rude comments and bad reviews left of my material that I’m pretty certain come from people who didn’t actually read my stories. I think a lot of it comes from the fact that I also use my blog to talk about social issues and politics that I often tie in to my stories. I really don’t know what to do at this point as I don’t like my writing being bashed like this. Part of me just wants to take my blog down and pull my stories offline. What do you think I should do?

-Jessie

Sigh… I see this kind of thing happening more and more often. People getting torn down for their beliefs/opinions by narrow-minded groups stemming from either the extreme right, regressive left, or the useless hypocritical social justice warrior crowd… or some combination therein. Because this is the internet… and I hate it so much!

Okay rant over.

Hi Jessie,

I’m really sorry that this is happening to you. It’s truly a terrible thing when someone becomes the target of online harassment. You didn’t provide much detail in the who or why, so I can’t speak to whatever group has taken issue with you. However, I will say that you’ve made one critical error; You’re using your writing blog for more than just writing. Let me put it this way, what do I use my blog for? Do I use it to tell stories? Not really. I do post some of my work that I never intend to get published, but that’s just to give my readers something to enjoy while I focus on my next PUBLISHED work. No, my blog personally I use as social commentary on writing and movie making, and I try to keep the politics to a minimum… I often fail miserably just because politics ruins everything, writing included, but that’s the way it goes.

When I write on my blog, I try to stay balanced and keep my personal biases tucked away… again, not always successfully, but I’m usually passive enough that people don’t know which side of the line I’m on. Look back at my posts and tell me, am I a Hillary supporter, a Trump supporter, or did I feel the Bern? I doubt you’ll be able to figure it out.

So what to do… well honestly I wouldn’t take down your work. Doing so let’s them win. If you want to post your own opinions, without keeping bias in check and restrained, then I would say to create a second blog for that. Keep the two separate and make no way of connecting them. I’m sorry to say this, but it may be the best way to keep yourself out of trouble. That, or use a different social media engine to post your political feelings. As for the trolls, you can control whether or not their comments appear on your blog and you can delete the posts you don’t like. On Amazon, you can report abusive content, so I recommend doing so. Honestly though, trolls will never go away. Internet Anonymity makes sure of that.

Honestly, I was in the same boat as you not too long ago. I came under fire because Mohegan Sun posted that Dane Cook was going to be performing there and I responded with ‘Thank you, I now know not to be at Mohegan Sun that weekend.’

In typical man-child fashion, Dane Cook responded, calling me… well I’ll not repeat his High School language here. I responded, and gave him a piece of my mind for his attack on James Rolfe, an online entertainer that I’ve been a fan of for many years. The result was a slew of insults on my account from his supporters and ‘social proof’ people who claim to know him personally and took offense to my comments, yeah whatever. Then I even got derogatory comments about my book and other posts. Point is, it was my own fault for using my primary twitter account to post that… and expecting Dane Cook to show any sort of semblance of maturity.

Simply put, there is nothing you can really do about these people. The best piece of advice I can give you, aside from what I’ve already said is simple. One rule of fandom on the internet;
20% Will enjoy your work.
20% Will hate it.
60% Simply won’t care.
Disregard the last two and focus on the first one, they’re the people who matter.

So what do you think everyone? Do you agree with my advice? Is there anything more that you would do or do you think she’s justified in wanting to pull her work down from social media. Let me know below!

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.
jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com
I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.
Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

You can also add me on Twitter!

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Thanks friends!
Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim