Last week, after several months of not having a designated Facebook page for my writing life, I started a new page. My original writing page had hacked by a very horrible person who was posting stupid and degrading comments on all my posts and under the comments of the fans on my page using a fake profile. It was humiliating and hurtful to think someone must dislike me enough to waste time doing something so childish and demeaning. But, since I don’t know who was doing it, I’ve decided not to take it personally. And, if it happens again, I’m not going to let them win.
For a time after shutting down my writing page, I was using my personal Facebook page to promote my books and talk about my new projects. This made me a little uncomfortable since I had made my personal profile page public so that all my writing posts could be shared on my other media sites. I stopped posting anything ‘personal’ on my personal page, which was not much fun because I loved sharing pictures of my family and talking about things we were doing with my Facebook friends and family. I happened to mention this situation to another writer in a writer’s group I belong to, and he gave me some very good advice that I’ve decided to follow. He told me a writer should keep their ‘writer’s life’ separate from their ‘personal life’ because the fastest way to lose friends is to promote your writing all the time on your personal Facebook page. He said that when you keep your professional life separate from your personal life, only the people who really do care about your writing will join your ‘writing’ page. I had to laugh (and agree with him), since I had noticed a long time ago that most of my personal friends, and even some family members, had not joined my first writing page, anyway.
So, if you are interested in following my writing life, I hope you will join me on the new ‘writer’ page. I will post things that have to do with my writing projects, anything I find inspirational (or just silly), and undoubtedly some suggestive and naughty stuff, because well, that’s just the way I am. So, hop on and enjoy the ride! Sharing my fantasy world with you is an adventure I hope you will enjoy as much as I do!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Veronica-Blake-Writer/266206860220484
Veronica Blake, Writer 
Make sure you have a strong password, and don’t use it anywhere else. The most common hack is just guessing your password (which these days can be automated). If it’s any name or word in the dictionary, it’ll likely be guessed sooner or later.
My favorite trick is to take memorable phrase (or the name of a book or movie, if it’s long enough), and use the first letter of each word. Then change some letters to numbers (like o to 0 and l to 1), mix upper and lower case, and throw in some punctuation. Easy to remember, virtually impossible to guess.
Or the ultimate is to use a password manager (e.g. KeePass) and use it to generate and remember long random passwords. It’s great as long as you never have to type them in by hand.
I hope it works out better for you this time.
LikeLike
Thank you so much for all those great suggestions. I have started changing my password more often, and I’m trying to make it more complicated than my old ones. I still find it hard to believe that these crazy hackers waste their time–and ours–with this stupid stuff, but I’m not going to let them chase me off again. 🙂
LikeLike