Frequent Author Questions: "Oh God Oh God I'm getting vicious criticism on the internet. Help?”

Thoughts on this painful inevitability - yes, inevitability - of life as a published author.

There’s no right word to describe the worst feeling I know, so I’m going to make one up: “the BBs.” This is both an acronym for Big Bad Shame and a descriptor of what big, bad shame feels like, which is getting hit by BBs. A lot of BBs. An entire 1950s Boy Scout summer camp’s worth of BBs. All at once. And out of nowhere.

Crap on a CRACKER are the BBs pa…