I’ve just been reading a blog post about the death of Gillian Mears. I’ve read some of her writing over the years, since the early novel “The Mint Lawn” to the recent novel “Foal’s Bread”. There are many of her works I am yet to read, and I am saddened to learn there will be no more books coming from her pen/keyboard …
I’m sure I’m not the only person with MS who almost lays claim to another person, simply because we share a disease, and a life interest. But there you have it, both Gillian Mears and I have/have had MS, and we are both writers. Gillian Mears‘ writing has been published with traditional book publishers, mine has been mostly self-published. Gillian died at the age of 51 after many health problems. I am still alive at the age of 53, and living a relatively healthy life, albeit a life slowed a little by having multiple sclerosis.
Is there a point to this blog post? No, not really, except that I thought I should pay tribute to an Australian writer who has done much good work, and earned many accolades, and has now left the world in a bodily sense, but who lives on through her written words, and people’s memories of her. This is how I wish to live on, after I eventually die.
Not that I thing my mortal end is coming soon, I feel I still have many more years left in me. I am able to walk, even run, if I really really have to. I may get a little tired in the evening sometimes after a big, or stressful day, but overall, I’m feeling pretty good. And the fact that I’m not as well known through my writing as Gillian Mears was, is just one of those things.
I never tried as hard as Gillian did, and I’m quite likely nowhere near as good a writer as she was. We all have our own place in life, and I’m more than happy with the place I’m currently in, as a writer/poet with some books published, and doing writing related things that are within my capabilities, and that other people have found inspiring.
I’ve written on children’s reader that still earns me money many years after it was published, and I have three other books self-published that still sell the occasional copy through the Poetic Justice Cafe Gallery in Gawler where I am the Writer-in-Residence, present three times a week. I hold a poetry workshop there on every Sunday in the morning, and have a fine time enthusing others in the idea and reality of being a poet.
Is that enough for one life? I think so, more of the same sounds like a good way to go. Living in a way that suits me and my abilities, and that other people find inspiring? Wonderful!
Mick, Jane and Me 