When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.
I have a client who has either no or negative self-esteem. That said, he is a writer. And I’ve always believed that writers are egomaniacs, often closeted, but egomaniacs all the same. How the hell else do you bank your life on sentences knowing that there is a mighty chance that no one will read them, and make them anyway. Is that ego, insanity, possession, obsession, neurosis, inspiration, habit, faith? I think the reason people write is because they need to. This post is all over the fuckin’ place.
Are writers egomaniacs?
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Betsy Lerner 
Only in the sense that clouds are lighter than the sky.
Self-absorbed and delusional – I’ve been looking for a cure and when I find one, I will write about it and be even more famous than I am ‘not’ now.
Maybe some writers are egomaniacs, just as in any profession or walk of life. Most writers in my orbit are mostly introverted romantics or introverted smart asses. (100% here.)
The kind of huge ego I believe you’re talking about belongs to people like Donald, and I can’t see him ever writing anything.
I can’t imagine most writers being egomaniacs. If they are, they’d likely also be stalkers, insisting their stuff get read. (yikes)
Yes. Egomaniacs balanced out by brutal self-loathing
“Are writers egomaniacs?”
Not generally. More likely it is for writers to be narcissists or otherwise neurotic. Egomania takes a lot of energy and presence in the world. It’s more likely that an egomaniac is going to be a businessperson or politician or military leader or stone cold killer than be a writer.
And yes, writers write because they need to.
My ego, my enemy. I’ve brought and felt more pain when that drunk motherfucker was behind the wheel than from anything or anyone else. He may be a necessary evil, but evil he can be, and trusted he cannot. Humility is my friend, and the two just don’t get on well.
Ego has been mostly clean and sober for some time now, but is doing time, with only work-release and the occasional conjugal visit. I may not be much of a writer, but egomania is not welcome here.
i think all writers have some kind of ego because they write things down for others to read; it’s how much they think their words mean that drives narcissistic behaviour(s).
but there are variations in the sample. i think WRITERS (uppercase) are obsessive and it’s hard for them to stop creating/misbehaving. writers (lowercase) can move in and out of their writing life.
there’s a difference between uppercase and lowercase writers, for sure.
signed,
a lowercase writer
Oh dear. All this time, I thought my writing obsession was just another Leo/first born/Type A personality trait, tempered with liberal doses of self-doubt. Egomaniac, though, presumes I may like myself, too.
I write because it is my nature. I don’t assume anyone will read what I write. I doubt if anyone will read this comment that I am writing right now.
Tina, I read your comment! And I liked this: “I write because it is my nature.”
You might argue that actors are egomaniacs because they keep at it despite the mighty chance that they won’t get cast, or that artists or musicians or dancers or comics (shouldn’t forget them) are egomaniacs for the same reason. I think it’s something else, or a combination of something elses, and there are different ways of saying what that is. I write because I enjoy it, and I feel better after I’ve done it, but then you could say the same about eating, or for that matter breathing.
World conquest or writer? It was a choice. Both career paths were open.
I took all the classes for world conquest just I need case I had to fall back on something if writing didn’t work out.
indeed. I indeed want to be. Some make it with violence, some make it with loud voice cat sckreeching what people call song, birds go silent you’ll notice, and some make the world they want to be seen in as words that tell grand stories that are timeless. Indeed. Ego is good. Fleeting and really not that important but it makes for good drama. And even God loves drama. Yes. Writers are maniacally egoistic. Would we exist without it? Meow. (Yikes!)
And then again, if indeed God created everything out of himself our egos are shadows of what is. So, hmmm. Well, what the hell: Yes I am.
sometimes, preferably