By Lorraine Horsley

When I was kid, I wrote for the joy of it. I got A grades in English. My stories were often read out in class. I was good at writing. My report cards said so. I’d write stories for fun in my spare time. And I always found the time.

Fast forward a few years and I still wanted to be a writer, but now I had full-time work. My job took all my creativity and all my brainpower. Then I had children and I told myself that I was just too busy, that I’d find time to write one day when …

That’s when the lying really started.

Lie Number 1

I don’t have time.

How many times have you told yourself this when you think that maybe you’ll sit down and try to write that story? If you are anything like me, you’ve probably lost count.

But here’s the thing. We all have the same number of hours in a day and days in a week. Other people, people with lives just as hectic as ours, write books in that same allotted amount of time.

Telling ourselves we don’t have time is often a delaying tactic. If you don’t make time for something you want to do, something that you may not be very good at when you first start, then you don’t have to worry about that fear of failing, of just not being able to write that fantastic break-out novel that’s been percolating in your mind for a decade. If you don’t start, you can’t fail.

Chances are you find tasks that need to be done immediately that keep you from that story. Say you find yourself with an hour free, suddenly clipping the dog’s toenails, mowing the lawn, running to the shop to buy that extra carton of milk all rise to the top of the urgent list. And because of Parkinson’s Law, the theory that tasks expand to fill all the available time, your hour will be gone and, don’t you know it, you just don’t have time to write, not today.

So, here’s my challenge to you. Find just 10 minutes to write. Just start. It need only be a few sentences, but I guarantee you that once you have put pen to paper, or fingers on keyboard, you will feel so much better because you’ve started. This makes it so much easier to find the next ten minutes and keep doing that and then, abracadabra, you’ve magically produced writing time and writing is now a habit.

Lie Number 2

I need big chunks of time

From the exercise above, you can see that you can be productive in small chunks of time. But I know, I know, I hear you. You want big chunks of time to really invest in your story, to lose yourself in the world you’ve created, to create that masterpiece! I never wrote anything, for years, because I was waiting to find those big chunks of time.

And here’s the irony.

Now my kids are all grown up, I can find bigger chunks of time, sometimes as much as a full day. But the joke’s on me. Why? Because I can’t concentrate on my story for more than 45 minutes. Anything after that point becomes a struggle. I may do a couple of 45-minute bursts in a day, but that’s about it. Imagine how much writing I could’ve done if I realised that years sooner. Oh, the missed opportunities!

Lie Number 3

I’ll make time when (enter your delaying tactic of choice here)

This is probably my favourite lie because I told it to myself for years. My husband and I have five children. When the kids were young, I knew I didn’t have time to write. I just didn’t, did I. There was always another load of washing to do, another room to tidy, not to mention my actual paid work. There were years when I didn’t write a single creative word.

But here’s the thing. Saying ‘I’ll make time when …’ is a trap. Because the ‘when’ that you’re naming right now, such as when the kids are grown up, just morphs into another when once you reach that milestone. The next when might be when you get to work part-time, when you retire, when you aren’t looking after the grandkids. The list of whens is endless.

As bleak as this may sound, memento mori. Remember, you will one day be pushing up daisies. Don’t let those creative dreams be pushing them up with you. Start on your project today.

Still not convinced? Then let’s do some calculations.

Say you want to write an 80,000-word novel. Even thinking about 80,000 words gives the lies the motivation to raise their heads. Too much, not enough time, not possible.

But if you allocate just 15 minutes a day and can write around 250 words in those 15 minutes, by the end of a year you’ll have a full draft. Now multiply that by the time it takes for one of your children to reach the age of 18. Well, that’s 18 drafts you could have under your belt.

So, that’s three lies we tell ourselves about time. Next time you hear one of those repetitive time-lies rolling around your head, call yourself out. Go grab a pen. Write something. Let everything else wait. I assure you the world won’t end if the dog waits ten minutes for his manicure or your dirty socks don’t find their way into the washing machine immediately. And the grass is just going to grow again, anyway!

I’m in my mid-fifties now and I’ve promised myself I’ll no longer tell these lies. Will you?

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Bio: Lorraine Horsley lives in Western Australia where she writes poetry and fiction for children and grown-ups. For many years she worked for ABC Radio as a presenter and producer and often dives back into non-fiction feature writing. She is currently a PhD candidate at Curtin University specialising in ghost stories for children.