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Making it Up...

And Writin' It Down

By Julie O'Hara - Author, Poet and Spiritual WarriorPublished 3 years ago Updated 6 months ago 4 min read
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I pretty much knew all my life that I would be a writer. I had my first nationally published poem when I was 14 years old in 1974. Trust me, it was awful, but someone saw something in it. I still have the book around here somewhere… It makes me cringe to read it now. It is out there, but I will never post it publicly.

But the reality is, I really could not do anything else. I firmly believe writers are born, not made. Granted writing and talent can be nurtured, but if the words aren’t there, the words aren’t there. And often writers cannot do anything else, no matter how hungry and poverty-stricken they become.

Around 15 or 16 years of age, I got it in my mind that I was going to be a songwriter like Carly Simon, Laura Nyro, Carole King, James Taylor. I loved all the emotion of it, and believe me, angst ran deep in this teenage girl. It was a completely natural progression. I bubbled over with emotional drama. Yes, you can pity my parents.

And I had just discovered boys… And God help me, if they were skinny, had long stringy hair and knew three chords on a guitar. I was a goner.

I filled notebooks up. Notebooks. Notebooks full of unrequited teenage passion, love, and desperation. And yep, it was all garbage. But, in all fairness, it was who I was at the time. The emotions and feelings were overwrought, but they were absolutely 100 percent real.

Then it dawned on me. Maybe I could make a living at this!?! So I doubled down, and I wrote all the time. I was on the debate team, drama club, the journalism club, school choir, band, everything. I pulled out my mother’s old typing books and taught myself to type on an old Smith Corona portable typewriter. Yeah, I was that annoying artsy child.

And boy, did I have dreams!

I was determined, and like they say … write your dreams down, and they become goals. Identify the goals and they become plans. Act on the plans and they become reality. But, then, well you know. Boys…

Yet I found part time jobs and started saving every spare dime I could get my hands on, because, dammit, I was going to go to NASHVILLE. That was the DREAM. I felt almost compelled to go. (Ultimately, I nearly made it several times, but something always got in the way — usually a boy).

But I never stopped writing. Never.

The writing got a little better, and I met a cute, guitar-slinging boy (husband to be) and decided to open my heart and share my writing with him. I had visions of Carly and James, Captain and Tennille, but it never happened. And sharing my writing with him did not go well. It went very sideways.

He was extremely jealous, possessive, and unreasonable and thought that everything I wrote was based on some sort of sordid personal experience and that I was confessing the “dark side of my soul” or some other sort of nonsense. I should have seen this as the HUGE red flag that it was, but I turned a blind eye to so many things.

I was a stupid, hormonal 20-year-old who could not see the warning signs because at that age, you think “jealousy” and “possessiveness” equals true love. And I had myself convinced I was in love.

Looking back, I do not think I ever was “in love” with him. I think I just did not want to be alone. I did care about him. But in all honesty, I was never “in love.” He was “in love” and looking back, I realize how unfair I was to him. I never should have let it go as far as it did (marriage). He deserved better. A lot of shit went down in our marriage, and I will never sugar coat some of the stuff he and I did to each other. It was awful. But he deserved a woman who was in love with him. And that was not me. Fortunately, I do think he eventually found a woman who really loves him.

He hated my writing. He just freaking hated it. For some reason, it brought all sorts of insecurities to the surface for him. We had so many fights about it. No, not fights, battles. The first time we ever talked divorce was when it came to my writing with him telling me, “If you keep writing, we will be over.” He could not separate the fiction of what I wrote, the imagination in my writing, from real life.

He threw my work away, tore it up, burned it, belittled it, mocked it… Broke my spirit over time.

I do not know how many times I have had to say, “I’m just making it up and writing it down!” Because that is what a lot of writing is… Making it up and writing it down.

- Julie O'Hara 2023

Thank you for reading my poem or article. Please feel free to subscribe to see more content and if you are moved to, please consider tipping. In addition, my books can be found at https: Julie O'Hara Bookshop

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About the Creator

Julie O'Hara - Author, Poet and Spiritual Warrior

Thank you for reading my work. Feel free to contact me with your thoughts or if you want to chat. [email protected]

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