Strange Encounter with James Fell: NPD and writers

I normally blog about higher education and personal finance. But I had an online encounter that was so bizarre that I have to write about it.

Since the age of 22, I've worked with writers, ranging from famous science fiction writers (my teachers) to textbook authors to students to critique partners. A lot of these folks have very strong personalities. As a textbook editor for a major company, I worked with authors who made millions. They could be very difficult to work with. As a writer, I've worked with pretty strong editors. I've also had my work taken apart by readers when I wrote for the Chronicle of Higher Education.

So, I'm not faint of heart. But I recently encountered a Canadian fitness writer whose writing to me seemed to be filled with signs of narcissistic personality disorder. We met in a very weird way. A couple of people asked me to comment on his website. I did so. I was honest but not vindictive. What I got back from James Fell was absolutely horrifying: being called a douche bag. When I objected and said that seemed rather petulant and that I'm a professor as well as a writer and that I'm pretty educated, I got a torrent of abuse, unlike anything I've ever seen. I've seen a lot, but  I've never seen a writer who, apparently, has so little respect for human beings and who has so little tolerance for difference.

When I looked up his work, there were signs of NPD all over the place, an obsession with his body, bragging about his straight A kids, an obsession with stars and being famous, calling other people douche bags, bragging about his doctor wife, who, he told me, unlike me, is a "real doctor." Whatever. I was told by Fell that I don't have a life, just an existence. He told me I would be jealous of his most recent advance. I'm not. But I thought to myself: thinking that others are jealous of you screams NPD. Every job he talks about is executive this and executive that.  Yuck. I don't know him at all. Apparently a failed science-fiction writer, he bills himself as not being PC. I'm not PC. There's a difference between hating PC and being a vindictive jerk. Apparently, he got into some trouble saying that some personal fitness trainer didn't have the education she said she did. There was some kind of battle.

You never know what you're going to encounter in cyber world. Sometimes you run into full blown personality disorders. These folks are horrible to work with. I wish Fell well, but I shake my head at people like him. I do not envy his editor.