Ever read a book or see a movie and think, "Damn. I wish I had written that"? Well, it happens to me on occasion. I call it writer envy and I can get pretty green.

I recently re-watched "Flight" starring Denzel Washington, a fascinating story of one pilot's decline in the air as well as on the ground. Talk about character driven. Denzel's character takes an egotistical journey full of denial mixed with remorse and does it in an extremely functional way. This is no episode of Intervention. No. This addict flies a plane. Brilliantly done. Wish I'd written it.

Then there are a few TV shows on my list. The first one is "The Shield." Again, very character driven and Vic Mackey is like no other I have seen before or since. He lacks ethics, breaking the law whenever it suits him, even in order to solves cases. (Did I mention he is a cop?) Brilliant again! He is greedy, self-serving and you can't wait to see what he'll do next because you'll probably be rooting for him.

How do they do that?

Jelly, jelly, jelly. That's me.

Then there is season 1 of "True Detective." I do mean to point out only season 1 as season 2 was as amazingly awful as season 1 was tremendous. You can't nail it every time though and season 1 would be hard to follow up.

Two very strong characters so different and equally mysterious align on a path that interwines their lives while a twisted serial killer is on the loose. They had me at serial killer but these characters easily beat the suspense, murder and crime details for my interest. I cared infinitely more about them than I did if the killer was caught-which is always the crescendo of any good crime story- except this one.

And the book I most wish I had written? That would probably be "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" by Jamie Ford. First of all, I love a good war-related story. Let's face it. War is powerful. It shapes history and landscapes as it carves out a million individual stories of the lives it affects.

I don't live in a war-torn country (so far, so good) and I can't imagine being alive during a World War (again, so far, so good). But not only did Hotel capture that, but it also taught me about another side of WW II I hadn't heard or been taught about. And at the heart of it, Hotel is a love story, too. You just can't beat that nor can you write it because Ford already did, wonderfully.

So, there you have it. I don't covet the finer things. I don't want a fancy Fendi bag or a pair of Manolo's and that's good because I have a mortgage. But even if I didn't, I would much rather create something, a story, that resonates, teaches, awes and maybe even makes somebody jealous.

When it comes to writing, that's a real measure of success.