The Death of Jeremy Brown

When Londoner Jeremy Brown died, he had a tombstone erected, with the epitaph 'Here lies Jeremy Brown, born a man and died a grocer'.

Now either Jeremy was fierce disappointed with what he ended up being, or his wife was.

But this epitaph got me thinking. Of course I won't have a tombstone or the like. I'll have a brass plaque pinned somewhere above me in a forest of oak trees as I rot happily in my organic wicker coffin. I know all that.

But what will my epitaph be? Yeats had his sussed: 'Cast a cold eye on life, on death, horsemen pass by!' Hmmm. Yeats didn't see the coming of the motorcar. And the use of an exclamation mark on a tombstone just feels odd to me. Like a corpse farting.

Nope. My epitaph won't make unfortunate references to soon-to-be obsolete technologies or customs. But having thought long and hard about it (...well...cast my mind to it during a couple of tea breaks in the last few days...) the epitaph that strikes me as most honest, the most fitting, is the one that grips my heart with cold.

'Here lies Michelle Gallen. Born a writer and died an instructional designer.'

Of course the epitaph I want is:

'Here rot the mortal remains of Michelle Fabulous Gallen. Born a culchie, died an esteemed novelist, wit and bendy old lady.'

The wit freeflows after a few whiskies (well...I find me hilarious. HILL-AIR-EEE-US.) The bendiness should result from the yoga I will take seriously next year (ahem). But the novelist bit? Three years ago, I wrote 70,000 words of my novel in Nanowrimo month. 70,000 words in 30 days.

And I've written 20,000 words in the three years since.

This year I figured I'd written about 50,000 words of instructional content. I've no idea how much I've written in web content, blogs and emails. A lot more, I'd say. And yet I can't find the discipline to write the last 5000 words or so of my ageing novel.

I don't know. Maybe pinning my unwanted epitaph to the inside of my macbook might just remind me every morning of what fate awaits...born writer...dead instructional designer...