"One Woman, Four Decades, Eight Wishes" is no ordinary Hollywood memoir. Prepare to be re-energized by a spirit both indomitable and wise.

Marilyn Murray Willison went from the peak of success as a glamorous globetrotting journalist to the valley of despair, alone and facing a sudden inability to walk, thousands of miles away from friends and support. Hers is a comeback story of a different kind, as the former Los Angeles Times columnist and editor went on to seize the day, the year, the life ahead with gusto and humor, despite having to contend with multiple sclerosis and the daily drudgery of wheelchair confinement.

Her star encounters are all the richer and more telling because of it. For example, Willison takes us into her girl talk afternoon with Audrey Hepburn (who didn't like her figure and thought her neck was too long!) that wound up with the film icon squiring Willison through her hotel. It turned out that Hepburn was adept at pushing a wheelchair, having had experience with her mother's.

The book is especially inspiring for anyone of a certain age who is about to encounter a milestone birthday. Willison organized it all around her life-long mantra: I am healthy, beautiful, loved and enlightened; happy, famous, rich and thin.

She explains, "I went into a funk when 65 was right around the corner, and truly nothing in my life had turned out the way I thought it would. Every single plan I'd made for myself and everything I'd invested in, everything was just upside down. The only thing I could think of that had not changed was that mantra. The meaning had changed and the impact had changed. I realized that some of these things were still around — they had just changed a bit."

Through her story, through her eyes, deeper meanings of those eight words become clear.

Willison learned to compose stories in her mind and dictate them to a copy desk staffer when she was a newspaper woman in London. The skill has come in handy now that "the only thing I can move is my left hand and arm."

When asked how she writes, Willison says, "My husband hooked up the computer to the TV screen, so I can sit in my recliner and I can see the words as they go on the TV screen. I have somebody who will come and sit just a few feet away from me and will, as I say the words, they put them on the screen. Then once they're printed out I can certainly edit them. I live by the red pen," adds Willison, who also works as a book editor. "Red pens are everywhere in my life. With my left arm and a red pen, I can be fierce." She laughs.

Willison, who has written five other books, has also taught aspiring writers near her South Florida home. Her students range in age from 24 to 85.

"I tell my students here, 'I want a perfect sentence, a perfect paragraph, a perfect page, a perfect chapter, a perfect book. If I can teach them to write a diagrammable sentence — it's astonishing what a challenge it is for people to take a sentence and break it down into subject, verb, object. People don't think that way anymore, but I think once you do, it's easier. It gives a lot of thoughts about structure. I know I'm old fashioned, but I treasure the elegance of the English language."

She quotes C.S. Lewis in her latest tome, reminding that it is never too late to have a new goal or dream a new dream. What are hers?

"When I was in L.A. in the late '70s I had a newspaper column called 'A Woman's Place' and it ran Tuesdays and Thursdays and it was so lovely to have a platform, you know. I think of all the things that MS has taken from me, and it's taken a great deal, but I think that losing my career and losing my visibility and my platform, that has been particularly painful. Intellectually I'm still me, I'm still the woman I was who had followers and fans. If I could wiggle my nose, I would have a following again."

She contributes to publications including the Palm Beach Post and writes an online blog, but there's more to do.

Willison's key areas of reportage have been health (she was in charge of editing health and wellness stories the Los Angeles Times Syndicate) and entertainment. She retains her interest in Hollywood, particularly when it comes to celebrities whose lives have been touched by MS. Jamie-Lynn Sigler's recent announcement that she is an MS patient certainly caught her attention. She identified with Amy Schumer's talk of her father's journey with the disease as well.

"She was having a wonderful time with her sister and then their father got MS and it just turned everything upside down in expensive and unattractive ways."

For Willison, the biggest lesson of MS has been learning to have to rely on others for help. "That was the huge lesson for me as the ultimate independent only child. I didn't write about it, but at some point I tracked how many times each day I say 'Please' and 'Thank you.' It was truly an obscene number of times to have to ask when in the past you were the person helping people. You were supremely productive and blah blah blah. That was a learning curve, for sure."

Looking forward, she dreams of becoming a MacArthur Fellow, winning a grant to support her literary endeavors. "The challenge is that the people who make the nominations are completely under wraps and secrect. Nobody knows who these people are. It's always a big surprise," she points out.

It's hard to think of a more perfect candidate.

Photo credit: Randy McRoberts