A long time ago, I knew a liberal arts college undergraduate, a would-be writer, who often and loudly claimed that he had more talent and knowledge than any of of the faculty members, and didn't have a thing to learn from any of them.  He didn't have any reply when asked, if that were the case, why he didn't stop sponging off his parents  and actually go out and set the world on fire, start a revolution, write the great American novel--you know, actually do something with that prodigious talent, rather than hanging around a place designed for people who think they may actually get something of value out of those four years.

I'm sorry to say he wasn't the last of his kind I've met-- in classrooms, in offices, in theaters, and, yes, right here on OS.

A bullet-proof ego may well be necessary to persist and survive as a writer. It takes an whale of an ego to stare down a stack of rejections and make a fresh start on the next novel,  the better novel. But that ego can't be so impermeable that it sloughs off even the kindest criticism as if it were an attack, that refuses to learn from even the harshest lessons. It's as common in politics as in art: "My vision is pure and my methods are justified. You're either with me 100% or against me." Further down that road lies the paranoid megalomania of a Stalin or--better example-- a failed artist like Hitler.

Consider the life of William McGonagall, widely considered the worst poet in the history of the English language. He lived from 1830 to 1902, making him a contemporary of Oscar Wilde, Thomas Hardy, A.E. Housman and G.B. Shaw. McGonagall, though, is resolutely beyond influence, and gives no indication of ever having read anyone but McGonagall.

The following stanza from "The Battle of Abu Klea" shows off his distinctive way with rhyme:

      Oh! it was an exciting and terrible sight,
      To see Colonel Burnaby engaged in the fight:
      With sword in hand, fighting with might and main,
      Until killed by a spear-thrust in the jugular vein.

McGonagall started out as a weaver in Dundee, Scotland, but one day in 1877 he heard a disembodied voice commanding, “Write! Write!” From then on he traveled across and beyond Scotland, composing and performing his verses, firmly convinced of his own brilliance. As his fame grew, his recitals did in fact become more and more popular, but only because people were willing to pay for the chance to pelt the poet with eggs and rotten vegetables.  When even his hometown scorned him, McGonagall stomped off in a righteous poetic rage:

      No more shall the roughs of Bonnie Dundee
      Get the chance of insulting or throwing missiles at me
      For I'm going off to the beautiful west
      To the fair city of Glasgow that I like the best,
      Where the River Clyde rolls on to the sea,
      And the lark and the blackbird whistles with glee.
      And your beautiful bridges across the River Clyde,
      And on your bonnie banks I'm going to reside   

                                                     ("Lines in Protest to the Dundee Magistrates")

Thus speaks the impermeable ego. You won't have Nixon to kick around any more!   

While some consider McGonagall a sort of proto-performance artist, well aware of the wretchedness of his work, nothing in his various memoirs and diaries supports this view.

     Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
     Alas! I am very sorry to say
     That ninety lives have been taken away
     On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
     Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

      ....

    Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
     I must now conclude my lay
     By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
     That your central girders would not have given way,
     At least many sensible men do say,
     Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
     At least many sensible men confesses,
     For the stronger we our houses do build,
     The less chance we have of being killed.

In 25 years and over 200 poems, this signature style remains unchanged, unchangeable, impermeable. After all, why meddle with genius? When he died, penniless, he was still writing, still confident that he would be remembered for his work—which, indeed, he has been.