Kristen Lamb’s blog came around at a fortuitous time in my non writing life. Poor me, I’ve been feeling unloved because some people have been {{gasp}} RUDE to me. Life’s not a chair of bowlies these days and **sigh** it’s just all so HARD. So I read Kristen’s blog Handling Criticism. And I read it again. Especially this observation: “Part of getting a healthy relationship with criticism is learning to discern what’s constructive versus destructive. Some people are just jerks. Nothing we do will please them, so learn to shrug them off.”
Some people ARE just jerks and nothing we do can change that. We can just work very hard not to come down to their level. Not everyone is going to love us, and once we get past that point we can work harder at being our own person, not a reflection of what we think other people want us to be.
As a writer, that means writing the best books I can, dealing with good criticism, ignoring the bad, and learning the 
difference. As an individual, it means accepting the people who want to join my life journey, and not worrying about those who don’t. (bet you thought I was going to say pitying those who don’t)
I’m off to write the very best book I can. How about you?
Don’t forget to mark your calendars for MFRW’s incredible SUMMER CAMP!! where we’re all going to learn how to promote those great books we write
Mona Karel Author 
Good Advice, Mona!!
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So very true. As the Desiderata says, ‘avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit’ It doesn’t say ‘and write the best book you can’, but I think we can say it’s implied.
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