Broomeshtick

Being crippled by envy is a real threat to a happy life of writing – it’s very easy to read writing by people more successful than you and to consequently be distracted from your own work by thoughts of how you could have done theirs better. To maintain momentum in my own fairly average writing career, I’ve learned to make a conscious effort to arrest my thoughts when I find myself on the brink of this particular sort of jealousy; to remind myself that drawing comparisons between my success and that of the big shots would mainly make me a sadder, not better, writer. Until I learned last that Tony Parsons is the new writer-in-residence at Heathrow airport, seeking out “human drama”. Forget dignity and quiet acceptance: I cannot believe I have been passed up for the only writing job that I have ever felt destined to do.