Hello, today your author is taking the Patriarch hat off for a second to discuss a somewhat serious issue.

I just remembered I can now do that without being sniped by a mod. Before, I had too many 'non-chapter' chapters and that apparently warranted a problem during the writathon. So, now that I can do posts like this one again, you'll see them every once in a while.

First of all, head up, as previously mentioned, I'm working on CH backlog and there's basically nothing in the TDD backlog right now. The situation will change in a few days. I even changed some holiday plans to work more on the writing. Studying and working are always there and saving time to write is hard. The value of the Patreon is going to skyrocket for subscribers in the upcoming days, so that's that. I just wanted to make it clear once again for a matter of clarity and transparency. And you know me, I'm a tough nutjob. I can take a massive amount of work, writing, and studying without [hopefully] killing myself.

However, not everyone is the same.

Some people respond to criticism more strongly than others.

In the past week there has been a case above others where a big author basically didn't post anything because he's been very negatively affected by the comments of a few very mean people. And I've seen privately many other authors being very discouraged by some extremely negative comments.

Now, I have dealt with a massive amount of criticism in my life. Parents, family, friends, readers, authors, ex-girlfriends and so on. I still count myself lucky that I can pay my rent and live somewhat comfortably. And, most of all, I'm lucky to be in the privileged - albeit with small privileges right now - that I am in. I do what I love, I study when I say so and my job is what I say it is. I'm not rich nor wealthy by any means, but right now I'm surely lucky. To be honest, it wasn't always easy. And everyone has issues, be it me or a bigger author with a boatload of cash. And even the people who might be living more comfortably than you or me deserve some measure of respect.

I personally got a few very inflammatory comments here and I simply reported them. I got a few extremely stupid and offensive review and I reported those too. As of late, I apparently got accused of putting politics in this novel. I don't know where, honestly, but whatever. You get the gist.

I have dealt with this shit for a lifetime and I still gets me sometimes. It still can sadden me, ruin my day even. Sometimes I'll read a review in the wrong moment of the day, maybe if I'm vulnerable, and it's going to stick for hours. In the worst days of my writing career, I couldn't sleep, I cried, I shouted into a pillow. It wasn't nice; it was nasty.

Sadly, we cannot whip idiots, be it right, left, communist, nazi, mean people, too good people, overly religious people, overly satanic people, overly idiotic, overly smart. Pricks of whatever category you can think of. I don't care. You can't whip them. Even though I'm of the idea that if you heavily insult another human being on Internet, lashes should be at least one of the options. But most governments do not agree with me.

I believe that if you are a prick, good chance is that you'll die a prick. So, here's what I encourage you to do.

I cannot change how the mean people behave. I try to start a conversation with them when I see the most stupid comments or review, but most times they don't even answer my DMs.

What a decent human being can do is to offer some support when he sees someone struggle. If you notice a nasty comment or a nasty review, address the idiots. It's the only weapon we really have until they allow me to freely whip pricks right and left. You see a nasty review? Write a nice one where you say that the person writing the nasty thing is a prick. Don't use too vulgar language, just mention the whipping they deserve if you want to. It's a nice piece of conversation I sometime use "I believe you should be whipped for what you just said, but lucky for you the law still doesn't agree with me."

I digress.

Anyway, the point is: see a nasty comment, reply with a positive thing about the novel and say that the prick is wrong. See a very nasty review? Do the same.

We are basically like hippies, but instead of flowers, we use the whip.

I like that. I might turn it into a novel, honestly. Title: The Whip.

This is basically a spoiler of a dialogue I had prepared for Joey in Casual Heroing but, as the novel goes, it is what it is.