KN Magazine: Articles
THE FIRST MOMENTUM
In “The First Momentum,” Clay Stafford reflects on the subtle but powerful moment when effort begins to shape direction. What starts as a small, almost unnoticed impulse grows into a force that builds confidence, discipline, and forward motion—revealing how even the simplest actions can spark lasting change.
The first time effort changed my world, I felt it before I understood it. It wasn’t a dramatic moment; it was an impulse. We had few neighbors during my boyhood, but as I walked down the road, I saw wild onions growing in their yards. Someone had mowed their spring grass, and the scent of onions was strong. The night before, my mother had cooked beef liver and onions for dinner, which was one of my favorite childhood dishes. Something aligned in my four-year-old mind. We planted onions in our garden, but the onions in the neighbors’ yards required almost no effort at all. Everyone I knew cooked with onions. I saw an opportunity and walked up the Ledford’s driveway. “One cent for five freshly dug, spring onions,” I offered. I didn’t realize the offer was accepted not because they wanted the onions, but because they wanted them gone from their yards. Regardless, I made my first sale. I went home, got a mattock, dug all the onions from the yard, and made a small pile of change. I offered my services to other neighbors.
It all happened quietly in a private corner of my mind, where work first intersected my imagination without witnesses. Even at this age, I wanted to leave my childhood behind and escape for many reasons. Selling wild onions to neighbors from whom I picked them, essentially selling something that was already theirs, caused a shift inside me. A small inner hinge turned, and a life that had once felt mostly imaginary (getting out) started to seem possible for the first time.
Before that moment, effort mainly meant doing what I was told: chores for my parents, helping both sets of grandparents with their farms, working alongside my father as a mason’s assistant, and managing projects when assigned. But with onions, I became self-directed at a very young age. It came from listening to adults talk, especially my father, that if I worked hard, I would achieve what I wanted. Before walking up the Ledford’s driveway, this advice, ingrained from such an early age, felt unfamiliar to my experience. I understood the words, but they didn’t truly resonate with me until I perhaps sensed a hint of opportunity in the smell of fresh-mowed grass.
I had dreams before then, of course. I’d stand between the ties of the L&N railroad tracks and look one way and then the other, knowing that there had to be something at the end of each direction. I dreamed of finding what was at the end of them, like that pot of gold hidden at the bottom of rainbows that my Grandmother Stafford told me about. These were carefree childhood dreams, the kind without experience, simple dreams, the kind that come before the realization that dreams will eventually face obstacles. As a child, I was Superman. I did not yet know my kryptonite. At that age, it’s easy to imagine many futures, even conflicting ones, like a boy imagining a distant city. I had never been to a large city, though I had seen Chattanooga, and that was enough to imagine one. But as I gazed north and south along the tracks, it seemed unlikely that the futures my small, inexperienced mind envisioned could be reached by walking there. It would require the jets I sometimes watched fly overhead.
At that age, I truly had no understanding of how the world worked. Effort felt abstract then, something distant from my everyday life. The outside world seemed vast and complicated as I tried to understand it by looking at pictures from my mother’s National Geographic subscription. Whatever movement or life existed inside it seemed to belong mostly to other people: older individuals, those who knew what they wanted, my older brothers, people who seemed to know things I didn’t and couldn’t grasp. Then, almost by accident, I did something on impulse: I went door to door with a mattock, selling people their own wild onions. Part of me felt I was pulling a fast one on the neighbors, not realizing they were doing the same thing, but I approached this new venture with a seriousness I hadn’t felt before until the wild onions went back into summer hibernation. I know it made me want more, but wild onions only grew so fast, so a second understanding began to develop: patience. Selling wild onions meant returning to the effort more than once, checking the yards to see how fast the onions were growing. This required a stubbornness that even surprised me, even as I felt it taking hold. I didn’t tell my parents what I was doing, nor did I let them see the money I earned. This was mine: my idea and my rewards.
When I was six, something important happened. I had been secretly saving my money in a Mason jar hidden beneath the debris in my closet to prevent anyone in the family from stealing it. My grandfather Parker, Papa, must have known (I guessed the neighbors had talked about what that Stafford kid was doing), and when he appeared, he offered to sell me his eighty-acre farm if I had $10 to buy it. I eagerly accepted, and I now owned a farm, much to the anger of my father and one of my brothers, who believed the farm should have gone to them. This opened a new door. With more money I saved from wild onions and selling vegetables to neighbors from my family’s large gardens, I began buying cattle, then poultry, and then selling cows, poultry, and eggs. I even started breeding and selling mice wholesale to pet stores. The work I started on impulse (selling wild onions) began to open up more opportunities. For a long time afterward, I looked back almost suspiciously at how strange it seemed that a boy like me should own a farm, make money, and plan his own escape.
Although I couldn’t name or verbalize the idea, I realized that my world wasn’t moving randomly. It moved because I kept putting in effort. I understood it not intellectually but physically, the way a body learns something before the mind does.
Once that understanding arrived, even in its smallest form, it changed the atmosphere of everything around me. I got involved in small businesses, using the money I had to generate more money. I opened a bank account by the time I was eight and moved money from my Mason jar to a safer place where it earned the most interest. By fourteen, I started my own production company, which I even registered as a DBA with the state of Tennessee. I didn’t realize it then, but it would change the course of my life and open the door for the escape I had hoped for so long. The world didn’t seem easier through all of this; it felt more demanding, but it was a demand I welcomed. Most importantly, life and effort no longer felt indifferent. My father was right: if I worked hard, the things I wanted would come.
There is a current beneath everything that effort seems to touch. It felt intoxicating to me in a way I didn’t yet recognize, but I sensed the addiction and the rush. Effort carried the promise of movement: the gap between imagination and reality might not be as wide as I thought. I began noticing what effort could do in everything around me. I saw it in the quiet persistence of people working long after anyone was watching. I saw it in the small improvements from consistently returning to the same unfinished task. I saw it in the steady accumulation of results that, from the outside, looked like sudden success. But nothing was truly sudden. Patience played a role once again. Yet what stayed with me most was that initial feeling of discovery: if you knocked on the door, people would buy their own onions. Effort created something, even as simple as a knock and an offer. It wasn’t luck. It had nothing to do with timing. It only existed in the realm of self-chosen and self-directed effort.
I still didn’t realize how complicated the truth would become later in life. I hadn’t yet understood how often my future efforts would face resistance or how many things the world would refuse to move, no matter how patiently I pushed. In my young Appalachian life, things moved more simply and slowly than what would eventually come. But I knew one thing, and I would never forget it: selling onions changed my life. Work could change things, and because I had felt that even in its simplest, smallest form, I could never forget it. Early effort shaped the way I approached everything afterward. Not exactly with confidence; confidence would come much later, but with quiet curiosity about what might happen if effort was applied again, and then again.
Effort as an adult can be unpredictable. Sometimes it yields nothing, and the world remains exactly the same. But at times, in those precious moments, things change. A little progress here, a small breakthrough there, a quick “yes” when it’s most needed, a faint sense that movement has begun where there was once only stillness or even stagnation. Looking back now, I see that what started on the day I walked up the Ledford’s driveway wasn’t success; it was momentum. It was the subtle pull forward that appears when effort and possibility first meet. There was no certainty or clear direction. It simply came as an impulse: the feeling and belief that once motion begins, it can create something new, and perhaps even keep offering its own kind of blessings in response to the effort I put in. That was enough. Once I sensed the world responding to my effort, even once, like when I pulled those first pungent wild onions from the Ledford’s front yard, I would never again believe that standing still was all the world knew how to do.
Clay Stafford is a bestselling writer, filmmaker, and founder of the Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference, Killer Nashville Magazine, and the Killer Nashville University streaming service. Subscribe to his newsletter at https://claystafford.com/.
THE QUIETNESS BENEATH THE STRIVING
In “The Quietness Beneath the Striving,” Clay Stafford reflects on a life driven by constant motion and ambition, only to discover a profound shift when the striving finally quiets. In that stillness, he confronts the deeper question of identity—who we are without the chase—and explores the peace, clarity, and self-understanding that emerge when we stop pushing and simply listen.
In that quiet moment, I realized I was no longer striving. For most of my life, I chased something I could never quite name. I moved against the ticking of an internal clock only I could hear, always aware that time kept moving forward.
No actual Big Ben was telling the time, but I felt its presence in how I approached work, opportunities, relationships, meals, sleep, and even the ordinary moments of each day. My life carried a quiet urgency that fueled my ambition. I rose early, pushed forward with determination, pursued the next project, the next mountain to climb, the next room, the next possibility, hoping it meant I was moving in the right direction. Movement was always necessary. Ambition was desired. Action was virtuous. I questioned none of these. Movement, always, justified itself.
Although I always felt overwhelmed and behind, those outside my mind admired my life and career, often complimenting me on how much I had achieved with so little sleep. I worked hard. I built things. I wrote. I traveled, spoke, taught, and organized. My days were packed, seven days a week, driven by what I saw as purpose, and I rarely questioned purpose when it showed measurable results. Invitations came. Opportunities followed. Doors opened. I moved through them all with the confidence of someone who has long believed that forward momentum is the key to a well-lived life.
A ghost haunted me. No matter how much I searched within myself, I couldn’t see it clearly, but there were many small, hollow, and lonely moments when I sensed something hidden just beneath my movements. I couldn’t quite grasp it and mistook it for guilt for not working harder. I walked the hotel hallways late at night, stared at the stars after a long day of writing or directing, and always, there was a lingering vibration inside me, something unsettled. My days went well, but it was the quiet of the night that seemed to condemn me. I searched for the source of that restlessness but could not name it. How could I feel so empty when the day had gone so well?
Caring and striving were like twin threads woven together in my mind. I grew up in and intentionally stepped away from circumstances where effort wasn’t optional if you wanted to escape a room with no doors or windows. If something mattered or freedom was vital, I approached it with intensity. “How would you describe me?” I would ask my friends when we sat around reminiscing about our day. “Intense” was the word most often used when describing me. And why shouldn’t it be? If something truly mattered, didn’t it demand intensity? If a dream was worth chasing, didn’t it call for force? The world does not open easily, and I learned early that doors had to be pushed because something on the other side was always pushing back. Over time, through experience and different situations, my mind rewired itself, and my posture hardened into a habit. I became skilled at many things, especially pushing.
The work itself never felt wrong. I loved writing. I loved creating in many forms. I loved teaching. I enjoyed building companies and projects. I cherished the strange and wonderful spaces where ideas moved between people and something unexpected appeared in every room. Those moments of exchange and growth felt like the closest I knew to being true to myself, but the path to them still carried a constant, underlying tension that I rarely examined, even though I always felt it. I assumed it was simply part of the deal. Years passed this way, much of my life.
The shift happened gradually enough that I didn’t notice it at first. Nothing sudden or dramatic took place, no failures, no collapses, no abrupt rejections that forced a change in direction. I kept climbing. The work continued. The invitations kept coming. The doors I pushed so hard against started to open. I kept writing, speaking, and building the things I believed were worth creating, but something began to change within the movement itself.
I started to notice, gradually, that the urgency that had driven me and been inside me for so long was beginning to fade. Projects still mattered, but they no longer felt like evidence of anything. Conversations still energized me, but they didn’t carry the same weight to confirm my place in the world. My focus started to expand beyond work. I didn’t lessen anything; I added my family life to the mix with the same sense of purpose. Professionally, then personally, the invisible clock kept ticking. Yet, something strange happened: the constant ticking somewhere behind my ribs and in my gut began to fade, then grew oddly silent, enough to scare me. At first, I wondered if I had lost my edge, or maybe I had climbed so high that there was nowhere left to climb.
To me, intensity was synonymous with vitality. As intensity faded, it left behind an unfamiliar silence. I lacked the experience to understand or accept it. Sometimes, I would sit down to work in the mornings and notice that the old edge, the one that had propelled me forward for so many years with relentless energy, was no longer there in the same way. It felt unsettling. Shouldn’t I be feeling stressed this morning? The absence of stress felt wrong, as if a hole had opened somewhere. The work was still there. The desire to do everything well persisted. What had disappeared was the feeling that the work needed to justify my existence.
For years, I believed and knew that striving was the driving force of my life. Without it, I thought, the entire structure of who I was and what I had built might fall apart, yet the opposite seemed to be happening. The work continued, but it changed. The writing deepened. The conversations felt less like performances and more like authentic encounters. I found myself listening longer, talking less, pausing before responding, and letting ideas come in their own time instead of forcing them. I began to see my mind shift from rapid change to deep transformation. I wondered if it was age. I questioned whether something essential was fading. But it was something else, still without a name or face. The love of the work was still there exactly as before. What had vanished was the tension that once surrounded it.
I began to realize that much of the effort I had invested wasn’t really about the work itself. It was about what the work might prove. Every project once carried a subtle secondary goal: to confirm that I was moving in the right direction and that the path I chose mattered. When that need was alleviated, writing felt less like arguing with the future and more like engaging with the present. Teaching felt less like displaying knowledge and more like sharing a space with people who were thinking their way through something together. Even the long days of organizing and planning, which once felt like necessary battles against time, began to take on a calmer rhythm. As I loosened, my work shifted as well. The life I loved no longer required the intense striving that once defined it. The realization was both simple and disorienting.
One afternoon, while at my desk, I realized that hours had passed without the usual tightness in my chest that often came with long periods of focus. I had been writing steadily, absorbed in my work, moving smoothly from one idea to the next with a calm attention that felt almost strange. When I got up and went into the kitchen, I noticed that the day had gone by without that old sense of pressure. Nothing had been forced. The work had simply happened.
I reflected on earlier years when every step forward seemed to need a kind of inner strength, as if the next moment might demand more effort than the last. I remembered the determination that carried me through those times, the relentless push that opened doors that might otherwise have stayed closed. The past brought me to where I am today. I don’t regret any of it. The effort served its purpose. It carried me through landscapes where effort was the only language that worked. It built things that mattered. It took me to rooms I had once only dreamed of entering, but somewhere along the way, the reason for that stance quietly faded. The work I love no longer needs to be defended by force. It has become its own justification.
Looking back on the past, I see my younger self moving forward with admirable determination, overcoming obstacles that once seemed impossible. I feel gratitude and tenderness for that version of myself. That younger man believed that intensity was the price of meaning, and in many ways, he was right; however, the life that followed didn’t require the same approach. The projects still mattered. The conversations still mattered. The writing still mattered. My family still mattered. What changed was the environment around those things. The atmosphere felt clearer, the movements lighter, and living no longer carried the burden of proving anything beyond itself. Instead, it demanded attention. When I finally saw it, the fullness of life had always been there.
I still worked. I still built things. I still loved. I still followed the ideas that sparked my curiosity and the conversations that drew me deeper into the strange and beautiful experience of being alive, but the motion felt different. The clock had stopped ticking somewhere beyond my awareness, and when I finally noticed the silence it left behind, I realized that the life I had been chasing had quietly been walking beside me all along.
Clay Stafford is a bestselling writer, filmmaker, and founder of the Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference, Killer Nashville Magazine, and the Killer Nashville University streaming service. Subscribe to his newsletter at https://claystafford.com/.
WHEN BEING SEEN WAS COSTING ME MY VOICE
In “When Being Seen Was Costing Me My Voice,” Clay Stafford reflects on the hidden cost of visibility—how recognition, success, and constant presence can slowly erode authenticity. As he examines the tension between being seen and truly being heard, he uncovers the quiet realization that reclaiming one’s voice sometimes requires stepping back, setting boundaries, and redefining what it means to show up.
I had been visible for years before I realized I was disappearing. My name appeared on programs. My work circulated in rooms I wasn’t in. I was introduced, quoted, and invited back. People recognized me in hallways and said kind, even effusive, things about my presentations. From the outside, it looked like presence. From the inside, it felt like a faint but steady misalignment I couldn’t put my finger on, as if I were arriving everywhere slightly ahead of myself, leaving something essential behind.
At the time, I did not have the words for it, but I could feel it. I knew only that I could move through a day of being seen, noticed, acknowledged, and included, and still return to my hotel room with the peculiar sensation that nothing of me had truly been encountered. The interactions had been real, the exchanges polite, always warm, encouraging, and welcoming, yet something beneath remained untouched, like a current beneath the visible surface of water that no one had dared to step into. This was when I realized that remaining visible on others’ terms was costing me my own voice.
For a long time, I mistook participation for expression. I spoke when asked, contributed when invited, shaped my words to the room’s tone, adjusted emphasis, softened angles, and translated what I meant into what could be easily received. I had been taught and trained that these were exemplary traits of a professional speaker. It did not feel dishonest; it felt appropriate, even skillful. I believed I was being effective by being flexible and quick on my feet.
There were advantages to this way of moving: doors opened, conversations stayed smooth, I was easy to place and include, and I played the game well. I rarely disrupted the existing architecture of any space I entered. Whatever I carried that did not fit the frame, I held back without quite noticing. I conducted myself as a seasoned professional. It seemed natural to assume that whatever was most central in me would eventually find its way forward once conditions allowed. However, conditions remained remarkably consistent.
I began to notice that the more visible I became, the more carefully I edited myself in real time. It was not overt suppression but a series of small internal calculations: this part later, that part reframed, this angle unnecessary, that thought too sharp for this context. I watched myself adjust mid-sentence, reading the audience, sanding edges before they reached the air. Others responded positively. I was articulate, measured, constructive. I left interactions intact. I also left them unmarked by anything that would have required me to stand fully behind what I knew but had not said. I sought to encourage and entertain, never saying anything that would lessen my audience’s zeal. The cost did not appear as a loss; it was loaded with positives. The audiences were left uplifted, but I was left fatigued without an obvious cause. I still couldn’t put a name to it.
There were evenings spent in those hotel rooms, looking out over whatever new city I was in, when I could not find exactly what had been spent. I had not argued, had not defended, had not even disagreed strongly enough to be memorable, and yet I felt as though I had been slightly erased in my own presence, the way a photograph fades not all at once but in increments too small to notice until a comparison is made, a hollowness that could not be explained.
The recognition came during an ordinary conversation while I was delivering a speech on “Thinking Outside the Box” to a group of high-ranking officers in the U.S. Department of Defense, following the usual pattern. I was asked a question that touched something I cared about deeply. I began to answer, but halfway through, I heard myself shift tone, redirecting toward safer phrasing, aligning with the prevailing view before my own thought had fully formed. The person in the audience who asked the question nodded, satisfied. The exchange moved on. Another question, another sincere but necessarily incomplete answer. No one would have registered anything unusual, but I felt the moment standing there on that stage in front of a couple of thousand intimidating individuals that I had stepped aside from myself.
It was not dramatic, but I felt myself stumble and pause, then kick back in professionally as if nothing had happened. No one interrupted or contradicted me, and nothing external kept me from finishing the thought as it had first formed; I doubt anyone in the audience noticed. The change came entirely from within, so practiced that it barely registered. That was what stopped me: how automatic it had been, how quickly I had chosen to align with the room’s expectations of what they wanted to hear rather than with myself. The presentation and question-and-answer session ended. I left the stage, hearing the echo of applause, but also the echo of what I had almost said.
What startled me was not fear. It was recognition. I had done this many times. I had mistaken being allowed to speak for being willing to say what was true. I had accepted inclusion that required no more than participation. I had equated circulation with expression, and in doing so, I had stayed visible in ways that asked nothing of me that might have cost me acceptance or an invitation to return.
I began, quietly, to track these moments in future speaking engagements, not correcting them yet, only noticing. The sentence softened before release, the point abandoned mid-formation, the thought translated into something adjacent yet less precise. Each instance was minor, but together they outlined a pattern I would later reflect on in my hotel: I had learned to remain seen without risking being fully heard.
There were reasons. Early experiences in which speaking or writing directly carried penalties, contexts in which smoothness ensured safety, and environments where standing apart invited correction or withdrawal. Adaptation had been intelligent. It had worked, and professionally, it had worked well. It had also lingered long past the conditions that required it, operating now in rooms that might have held what I actually meant, had I placed it there. What I confronted was not silence imposed from the outside but a self-maintained narrowing of what I allowed to be revealed.
The loss revealed itself in the absence of resonance. Interactions ended cleanly but did not land. My contributions were acknowledged, yet others shifted only within their comfort zones, including mine. I left exchanges intact yet untouched, as if I had hovered at the edge of my participation. The visibility remained, but I realized the genuine encounter had not.
Sitting alone in the hotel room, I felt grief in that quiet realization, not for opportunities missed or recognition withheld, but for the accumulated distance between what I carried and what I allowed into the conversation with those around me, those who had trusted me and looked to me for sincerity. I had not been prevented; I had remained within boundaries that required only parts of me.
I did not change abruptly. I could not, because I had been developing my style and presentation for decades, but I did begin to allow one thought to finish before editing, then another. Sometimes the room shifted slightly; sometimes it did not. But I could feel myself shifting. Occasionally, there was friction, but more often there was simply a different quality of attention, one that met what I allowed myself to say rather than what I had made acceptable to the room. I felt exposed in unfamiliar ways, yet exhilaratingly present, and, to my surprise, audiences engaged more, not less. New boundaries were approached by all of us.
What I noticed most was internal: a reduction in that unexplained fatigue, a sense of having stayed intact through an exchange, and the absence of that faint afterimage of self-erasure. Being heard did not happen everywhere, but it did not need to. What mattered was that I had remained audible to myself.
Visibility continued, and speaking engagements increased. Invitations continued, and nothing outward collapsed, but the terms shifted, first privately, then publicly. I no longer assumed that inclusion required dilution. Some spaces held what I brought, while others did not. I began to recognize the difference not by response but by whether I had departed from myself to remain.
Looking back, I do not see deception in my earlier ways of speaking. I saw that the way I had learned to present myself no longer matched what I knew. I saw habits that had outlasted the conditions that formed them. I saw a skill settle into habit without being questioned. I saw how easily I had stayed visible in versions of myself that asked little of me. The moment I realized hiding was costing me came not when anyone refused to hear me; it came when I heard myself step aside and recognized that no one else had asked me to.
Since then, visibility has felt different, less like light falling on a surface and more like space in which something either stands or does not. I still speak carefully and consider context, but I no longer edit the core before it reaches my speech, writing, and life and relationships. What remains unsaid now is unsaid by choice, not by reflex. I am still seen in many of the same places, but now, when I leave, I am there too, and I leave whole.
Clay Stafford is a bestselling writer, filmmaker, and founder of the Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference, Killer Nashville Magazine, and the Killer Nashville University streaming service. Subscribe to his newsletter at https://claystafford.com/.
MEETING MYSELF LATER THAN EXPECTED
In “Meeting Myself Later Than Expected,” Clay Stafford reflects on a quiet but profound personal transformation—one that arrived without announcement or ceremony. As he observes subtle changes in how he responds to others, sets boundaries, and values his own time and energy, he realizes he has outgrown an earlier version of himself. The essay explores identity, self-awareness, and the gradual shedding of roles that no longer serve us.
I realized I had become someone I didn’t recognize. It didn’t come with an announcement. It was a transformation unfolding in the most ordinary circumstances. I was standing in a doorway, of all places, listening to someone speak harshly to me about a matter that, at one time, would have sent adrenaline through my ears, tightened my chest, and flushed my face.
I remembered, even as it was happening, the version of me who would have rushed to repair the moment, to blow it up, to soften the other person’s discomfort, to slam them verbally against the wall, to explain myself more fully than was asked, to restore ease as quickly as possible, or to press the plunger that would blow the whole bridge. The reflex for all of these seemed to live benignly in memory, and I could almost anticipate them waiting behind my ribs. But they did not arrive. I observed them, and they sat there, like old bottles on a dusty shelf.
I stood there, leaning on the doorframe, hearing the words, feeling nothing but a strange steadiness I had never known before. It wasn’t disrespect or defiance. It wasn’t withdrawal or cowardice. It was nothing, really. I can’t say I felt nothing, because I did; it just wasn’t anything that prodded me to act. It was simply an absence of the urgency that had plagued me my whole life, one I had always called care.
I answered the reprimand briefly. I didn’t elaborate. I didn’t feel the energy to defend. When the exchange was over, I felt surprisingly nothing. I didn’t replay it. I went back to my work, got back into my Zone, and went on with what I had been doing as if what the person had said, or even the person themselves, weren’t important enough to acknowledge. It wasn’t the conversation, but the fact that I was nonplussed that unsettled me.
This was a small moment, a brief encounter with another person known for being a jerk (we always encounter these people), someone I had previously tried to appease in an old pattern. I don’t think the moment was big enough for anyone else to notice anything unusual, except the other person, who probably took my single answer, “Okay,” as a dismissive “Whatever.” But the exchange stayed with me for days, the way I might turn a stone over in my pocket, testing its shape, or fiddle with a cuticle that really should have been trimmed a few days ago. The incongruity of my own reaction was what bothered me. Something inside me had changed without announcement. There were no trumpets. There was only “Okay” and “Whatever.” The person (me) I had watched do this, as though standing outside myself, did not match the person I still assumed myself to be, and I wondered where this new person was coming from.
I spent days overthinking this disorienting experience of discovering someone I quietly did not yet know. For decades, I had measured myself against an internal image formed years earlier, full of traits I believed defined me: accommodating, responsive, eager to smooth edges before they hardened, mixed with indignation when misunderstood, and a tendency to shut someone else down quickly by whatever means necessary when I felt they had crossed the line. Here, I did not care. I did not care in the way I once had. And what had been discussed was a big deal, but for the life of me, I could not make it one in my head or heart. “Whatever.” Over the following days, I remembered how quickly I had once moved toward tension, how readily I had assumed responsibility for the emotional weather around me, calming the storms when I wished and bringing cyclones when I thought that appropriate. That self felt not only familiar but moral, as if vigilance and universal alignment were a form of kindness to both myself, those around me, and the world. Yet here I was, answering “Okay” without haste, leaving without rumination on the incident (only on its aftermath), and, frankly, feeling no corresponding loss of care other than the puzzlement over my own odd behavior and changed emotional center. I truly didn’t care if I was right or wrong; I frankly didn’t care when I thought I should.
The new quietness could have been mistaken for several things: lack of caring, retreat, indifference, fatigue, insubordination, or bravado, but it was none of these. The urgency was gone, not the concern. It was just “Okay, whatever.” What I found was a narrower channel of attention, a more focused self, as if energy that had once scattered outward now gathered close and stayed.
The change continued in other conversations and altercations. I didn’t give a flip. I listened, then went back to what I was doing. “Okay, whatever.” There had been no decision on my part. Whatever had transformed within me was not the result of one inciting incident but, as I look back, years of smaller negotiations, responsibilities accepted without spectacle, disappointments without rehearsal, and choices made under pressure when no ideal option presented itself. Each instance, each small thing, had asked something of me, and I had given it, without declaring or even noticing that anything fundamental was shifting until that one cumulative moment when I stood in my overcontrolling, micromanaging boss’s doorway.
Again, none of this was planned. I did not react the way I had to anything before. I was more concerned about my work and the quality of my life than about others’ opinions and their dramas. I noticed other small deviations from the earlier version of myself. I paused longer before answering questions that once would have prompted immediate reassurance or a firm confrontation of the other person’s subjective opinions. I began declining invitations I would previously have rearranged my life to accommodate. I gained time and emotional and mental energy by explaining myself less, not because I was trying not to rock the boat or out of secrecy, but because I knew that what I thought and felt needed no explanation unless I felt inclined to give one. None of these felt like personality shifts. I was trying on the new coat, and it seemed to fit well, but it certainly wasn’t the same cut. All of this felt like an efficiency of time, space, emotion, and thought, adjustments made in passing. Yet taken together, they described, if I looked at myself in the mirror, someone I had not consciously intended to become, but one I did like the reflection of.
I think what troubled me most was the lack of ceremony. There had been no threshold, no announcement, no prior thought, no acknowledgment, no moment when I had declared that I was leaving one part of myself behind, a mask I realized, and entering another that wore none at all. The transition, gradual as it was, had gone unmarked, which meant I continued to describe my masked self in ways that no longer fit. I kept expecting reactions that never came, anticipating moments that should have been sprinkled with more than “Okay” or “Whatever,” but those impulses had faded. Those motivations, whatever they were, had lost their force, yet I felt bad because I didn’t feel bad.
After weeks of observing my changed interactions with others, I recognized how partial my earlier understanding of my true self had been. I had believed I was defined by responsiveness and good manners, by the ability to read and accommodate others’ needs, even by the absence of my own sanity. But that trait, that mask, had carried costs I had once accepted without question. When those costs became less bearable, the change began, not by declaration but by attrition. Some habits fell away like dead skin. Some roles loosened. “Okay.” “Whatever.”
My newer self felt quieter, less big, less explosive, less performative, less pleasing, and less eager to be legible in every exchange. The absence of my old turbulence could be mistaken, even by me, for diminishment rather than strength. I no longer required intensity or tangled emotions to feel present. I no longer organized my responses around anticipating others’ reactions. I stated the truth, and when others received it, no matter how they took it, it was once again “Okay, whatever.” Certain parts of myself that had once seemed in constant need of defense now rested unguarded. I no longer needed a fortress; I no longer needed to play that game.
Recognizing this new self took time. I had to revise the internal map I had used to orient myself. I had to release descriptions that once felt accurate but now constrained my true perception of who I was, how I saw the world, and what I expected of myself, rather than what others expected of me. I saw the mask clearly. It had been given early, by upbringing, by conditional love, by shunning. The new or rediscovered me felt unfamiliar. What bothered me most was the lag between change and recognition. It was longer than I expected. One would think I was a smart guy and could have figured this out earlier. I was not that smart. Even after the change and the realization, I continued to live as someone new while still believing in the old.
What I had taken in youth to be identity turned out to be provisional, assembled from early circumstances, early fears, and early approvals. As these conditions shifted, my identity changed not by addition, as one might expect, but by an odd subtraction. I relinquished the need to be seen in a certain way, the reflex to repair every discomfort within reach, and the roles that once organized my behavior because they kept me safe and others happy at my expense. Each relinquishment felt minor at the time. Normalcy is an incredible liar. Together, being told who I should be and accepting others’ definitions left me with no plan. Sloughing off the deadness of it all revealed someone I never foresaw.
When I look back on my earlier self, I feel neither rejection nor nostalgia. I feel recognition of continuity, the same attention and care, now expressed with less urgency and less diffusion. The difference lies not in substance but in boundary. I never lost what mattered, but I shed what no longer served.
Meeting my new self, this new person, later than expected, carried a peculiar strangeness. I moved through familiar settings with altered reflexes, speaking in tones that once would have surprised me, letting moments pass without intervention, whereas I once would have stepped in, and letting encounters fall away before I reached the end of the hallway. I watched myself do things with a mild astonishment that gradually softened into acceptance of this new self. Accuracy replaced familiarity as a measure of self-recognition.
In this transformation, I did not become someone else. I arrived at myself, slowly enough that when I finally noticed, I had to meet myself for the first time and say goodbye to an old friend I thought I knew. The mask went in the trash. “Okay, whatever.”
Clay Stafford is a bestselling writer, filmmaker, and founder of the Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference, Killer Nashville Magazine, and the Killer Nashville University streaming service. Subscribe to his newsletter at https://claystafford.com/.
ON TIME
In this reflective essay, Clay Stafford shares a painful early career lesson about deadlines and reliability. After missing an important screenplay deadline tied to an opportunity with Mary Tyler Moore’s production team, he discovered that even great work can be overshadowed by missed commitments. The experience reshaped how he viewed professionalism, discipline, and what it truly means to deliver creative work.
Who can turn the world on with her smile?
I grew up watching The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, so I was bouncing off the wall, as a young screenwriter, when Mary Tyler Moore’s MTM Enterprises (co-owned with Grant Tinker) wanted my script. Mary Tyler Moore was an icon. Then it fell apart. The disappointment, embarrassment, and failure did not end me, though for a long time, I truly believed it might.
The opportunity arrived unexpectedly through a mutual friend, wrapped in the kind of moment I had always imagined would confirm everything I had been working toward. It was the legend of being discovered, that old Hollywood myth, suddenly stepping into my actual life.
When Mary Tyler Moore asked to see the screenplay, it took everything I had to remain vertical. I still remember the sweet elation of that moment, the sense that something I had been moving toward for years had finally turned and recognized me. They wanted it. Now. I said it needed one more rewrite, perfectionistic as I was. One of her producers gave me a reasonable due date. We shook hands. The deal was on. I was so elated at the fulfillment of a dream that it was difficult to settle into the work itself. All I could think was that I had finally arrived.
When the deadline came, what I had written still hadn’t risen to the heights I knew I could give. I ghosted the producer and dug deeper into the script, convinced that better mattered more than time, despite knowing one of filmmaking’s simplest truths: on time and on budget. I missed the deadline.
I delivered the script anyway and waited for the applause. The producer refused to read it, handing it back to me directly. The look on my face was probably good fodder for his lunch that day. “What a look,” I could imagine him saying, friends laughing. It was the best work I had ever done. But the fact that I was unreliable showed brighter than the script itself. I had been dismissed. I had delivered late. I blew it.
Nothing dramatic happened in my world. Life continued as normal, except for the depression that crushed my heart. No public failure marked the moment, though friends occasionally asked how the MTM project was going. It was acid on my soul. Total embarrassment.
Yet while licking my wounds, something inside me began to shift. The lost opportunity started to feel less like a single event and more like a doorway into a future I had already begun to inhabit in my mind. When the door to MTM closed, the loss was not only external and emotional, but structural. I wandered off course, without direction, not knowing how to orient myself once the outcome I had taken for granted had been stripped away.
Over the next six months of beating myself up, I slowly realized that I had built parts of my identity around results I believed I could control, assuming effort alone would secure them. Before the balloon popped, I had believed progress followed sincerity, that as a craftsperson and artist, vision was what counted. It wasn’t that I thought anything else was unimportant; it was my naïve belief that vision was all there was. I believed that if the work was good enough, and if I cared enough, things would align to match its quality. Deadlines felt negotiable compared to devotion. Precision felt morally superior to completion. I had never questioned those beliefs because they had always carried me forward. Missing the deadline didn’t contradict my core loudly, but when the door closed, I was left staring at it and gradually began to see that even quality had limits. Some birds, no matter how ready, must fly when the appointed time arrives.
What unsettled me most in the long run was not the lost opportunity itself, but my own part in it. I had not been denied arbitrarily. Purchased scripts often never see production. But I had killed the chick before it could come out of the egg. I had participated in the loss.
That realization reached deeper than ambition or even culpability. I began to see how easily good intentions became excuses, how care could turn into delay, and how quietly I had assumed the world would move at the pace I set for myself.
In the months that followed, no earthquakes occurred. What came instead was a quieter reckoning. I began to see how much of my direction had depended on imagined outcomes that ignored external reality and requirement. I saw how often I measured movement by where I expected to arrive and by the quality and applause waiting there, without recognizing the outer structures that also shaped my path. Without that full interior and exterior reference together, I was unmoored, as though the map I trusted no longer matched the ground beneath me. It was seismic.
Getting cut by MTM didn’t erase my hopes. It changed my proportion. I began to understand that effort and result were related, but not the same; that devotion did not replace structure; and that aspiration, no matter how noble, did not suspend time.
These realizations did not arrive as neat conclusions. They gathered slowly through self-incrimination, discomfort, reflection, and a gradual willingness to see what had been invisible while success had seemed so close.
Over time, the disorientation eased. I went back to work on the next project, but differently, not less carefully, but within forms that honored both my inner standards and the outer realities of the world I wished to belong to. I did not become immune to disappointment, but I became less dependent on projection. My work continued with a steadier proportion between what I could shape and what I could not, and within the confines in which I had to do it. The world did not operate around me. I had to operate within the world.
The opportunity I lost never returned in that form. Something else did: a clearer understanding of responsibility, restraint, and completion that might not be perfect. I no longer mistook perfection for devotion or delay for depth. My work reached others when they held out their hand, never later. And because of that, a career took shape. My path altered. The failure did not end me. It became a necessary step in my growth.
I came, eventually, to cherish it. I told the story to others, laughing at my own naïveté. Because of MTM, I rewrote the map by which I moved forward. The experience served me better than if the script had been produced, because it changed not my career, but who I was and the professional I longed to be.
And so, thanks to Mary Tyler Moore, I realized: you’re going to make it after all. I now toss my hat into the air at the proper musical beat.
Clay Stafford is a bestselling writer, filmmaker, and founder of the Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference, Killer Nashville Magazine, and the Killer Nashville University streaming service. Subscribe to his newsletter at https://claystafford.com/.
LIMITS
In “Limits,” Clay Stafford reflects on the lifelong belief that success requires pushing through every obstacle and never admitting weakness. Over time, however, he realized that ignoring personal limits can lead to exhaustion, frustration, and a narrowing of curiosity and creativity. Rather than being barriers, limits can act as guides—helping us focus our energy on what truly matters and preserving the clarity, purpose, and depth that meaningful work requires.
I was raised to believe that when I came to an obstacle, it was a personal shortcoming if I did not push through, a personal failure if I did not succeed, and a personal cowardice if I gave up. Those beliefs inhabited the marrow of my bones and festered in the recesses of my brain. I had no natural limits, none of us did, or so I thought and was bred to believe. Even giving credence to such an absurd suggestion felt irresponsible. I knew I and everyone else could overcome anything if we only pushed hard enough. There was no skill we couldn’t learn, no talent we couldn’t expand, no mountain we could not climb. I not only judged myself; I judged everyone. I taught it to my students and in my lectures. We all needed to be responsible for the optimal performance of our lives. It was called being dependable, being responsible, rising to the challenge, working harder and smarter, and pushing through. The push was always highly emotional, causing stress and conflict not only in me but in all my relationships, where others’ performances fell short, but I knew it was worth it. It brought out the best in all of us. Like a winning coach, I pushed myself and those around me. And when they pushed back, I viewed their lack of participation as denial and even laziness. Emotionally wrought, I could never see the mental clarity lost in this thinking. From the dejected faces of those I lived and worked with, it seemed I failed in the very presence that I thought I was being, the one I thought I was protecting. Even in that, I strove to do better.
The satisfaction of control brought me peace, or so I thought. I put myself in charge of my destiny. I oversaw my own future, and nothing could get in the way of that, and very little did. I offered every problem and relationship a doorway that could make things easier for me and everyone around me, but if it was blocked, I had no qualms about going through the wall. Pushing longer, harder, and stronger was, to me, a form of commitment. Staying with a problem until the end of the day, even if that day ran into the night, or even several days without sleep, was applaudable devotion and intention. Accepting limits or growing tired meant one had no self-respect. This was how a meaningful life was to be built; the lives of the great men and women I read in biographies exemplified that. They pushed through because they had something all of us could acquire: character. They built meaningful lives; I would, too. Endurance, discipline, and refusal to quit were the framework of success. Refusal to quit meant refusal to retreat, like cowards, like those who were weak. Even rest itself, I told myself, could wait. “I can sleep when I’m dead” was not uncommon coming out of my mouth in reply to those who were close to me and cared, as I popped my trucker’s caffeine pills, drank my ten Cuban coffees, and my gallon of daily tea.
The cost of this thinking and living with such force didn’t show up immediately. It took decades. That’s the deception we take to heart when we believe the deceitfulness chocked at us by the sycophants of the famous. The famous lied to the watching world, the obsequious flatterers lied to readers of books about great men and women, and then I took those as truths and lied to myself. Sure, the lies gave me extra waking time, or something that resembled it anyway. I learned how to stretch the day thinner, how to draw more from myself than I thought I could. The point that activity didn’t always equal accomplishment, though, was often lost on me. What I gained in hours, I lost, though I didn’t realize it, in life and relational clarity. After decades of this rat race, my attention to the important things, not just the walls to burst through, began to dull. My decisions about where to focus slowed. Simple things began to take longer, though I attributed that to age. Regardless, the very life I had always believed I was protecting by defining my own fate began to resist me.
I began to see, or rather I began to feel, that the very wall that I could not seem to push through was myself. Nothing dramatic happened to show me this. Fatigue didn’t announce itself to me publicly. Nothing in my life collapsed. Feeling tired all the time wasn’t bad; it was my baseline. Yet, focus began to take on the persona of irritation toward my work, myself, and the people around me. I no longer set out to tackle only the big things; small problems now carried more weight than they should have, and small mistakes by others began to irritate me. Life began to feel painful, even at times undesirable. Everything became such a big deal. I found that where I used to slam through walls, I began to make choices not out of intention, but out of relief. I became drawn to whatever would end the discomfort the fastest.
Being successful, I began to wonder, why did I feel at rock bottom? Being high in my profession, having relationships others would envy, having built the life I envisioned, something had to change, though I didn’t know how to give it a name. My choices began to become ill-guided, not from indifference, but from dullness. The part of me that once noticed nuance grew silent. Subtle distinctions in life, work, and people disappeared. I lost my sense of when effort was required and when time was the truer answer. I could still function, but I was compensating, now relying totally on force on everything where attention and inspiration once worked cleanly.
Then came denial, and the emotional cost that followed. Each time I overrode the yokes, big and small, that pulled me down, I taught myself not to listen. Signals that I used to welcome began to annoy me. They were inconveniences to my peace. Discomfort became something to suppress, to submit to silently rather than with understanding. Gradually, all trust eroded, not just in my body, mind, emotions, or energy, but in myself in general. A faint impatience began to settle in, yet flat, a sense that I was now pushing through life, all parts of it, still accomplishing, but rather than moving with it, things were no longer flowing.
As a result of shutting out the world and the world within my own head, my world narrowed. Limits began to change perspective. Everything became about getting through the day. Curiosity, my lifeblood, even began to fade. I knew something needed to be done, but that was the problem. I had everything I could ever want. Recovery from that seemed crazy and certainly ungratefully indulgent. Surprise began to have no place or excitement. My world was perfect. I was not in crisis, yet I was living as though I were. Survival mode replaced presence without my consent. Everyone around me felt it or felt the brunt of what I would not share.
I think the most dangerous part was how ordinary it all felt. Nothing told me to stop. Nothing told me to slow down. Nothing hinted at any type of collapse. Nothing told me I needed to stop bashing walls. No one told me I had a problem, or if they did, I didn’t hear. What I was doing, though, was operating below capacity, and I’d been doing it for way too long. I focused on my limitations to the point of obsession, at the expense of seriousness and gratitude about what I could control. There were limitations that I could not power through, I realized after too many years. And because I didn’t realize this earlier, all limitations, even challenges, began to operate out of the same intensity. Out of the blue, it hit me that if I couldn’t power through certain things that didn’t erase who I was or what I could become despite them. I realized that maybe those walls were there for a reason, that maybe I was meant to be something I didn’t consciously see myself as. The realization was slow and painful, but my life began to change. Centering took the place of warfare.
My limits took on a new light. They were never obstacles; they were misconceptions on my part. They were even guardians of who I was meant to be. The sad thing is, I had been deluded and deluded myself for a lifetime. I recognized the pundits of the super life were frauds. I began to respect those limits. At first, I didn’t respect limits dramatically or perfectly, but rather honestly, and, when I did, something softened inside me like the Grinch’s frozen heart. Efforts on things that were within my limits became cleaner. Decisions within my framework grew quieter and more precise. Life began to deepen again, rather than merely expanding. I began to do less because I stopped slamming into walls and instead spent my time doing more. That was the paradox. In fact, I did better at everything I did. The cost of refusing to stop at natural limitations had been the gradual loss of the very capacities that made my efforts meaningful in the first place. Limits and walls became not challenges to defeat, but invitations to stop long enough to acknowledge, honor, and preserve those things that did matter within the sphere of life I’d been given in which to live. Limits became no more than a beautiful river in my life, a life without a boat, that asked me to choose the path to the left or to the right when it told me in so many ways I could not cross but promised adventure no matter which direction I chose.
Clay Stafford is a bestselling writer, filmmaker, and founder of the Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference, Killer Nashville Magazine, and the Killer Nashville University streaming service. Subscribe to his newsletter at https://claystafford.com/.
LISTENING
In “LISTENING,” Clay Stafford reflects on how stillness, restraint, and quiet attention reshape understanding, relationships, and meaning. Instead of solving, pushing, or fixing, he discovers that discernment and presence — listening without needing to act — can deepen insight and transform how we live, create, and make decisions.
I always believed that human glory and life’s meaning were found in the senses: what I saw, touched, felt, heard, smelled, and tasted as I sped down the passing lane of accomplishment. These things provided the richness of living, complementary to the mountainous regions of sentience, the arcs and trajectories of being, and the hills and valleys of experience, the satisfaction of the present moment, and the excitement of things to come. Moving through those elevations and absorbing the delight of each moment seemed attainable only through effort and discipline, verified by visible signs of progress. Passivity, I believed, would not allow fate to deepen. Nor would acceptance or routine. I was not born intentionally appreciating what surrounded me. It was up to me to seek it out. Without intention or constant effort, something in me dragged me downward, turning me negative, and closed my eyes to the beauty held even as close as a flower in my hand.
For me, work and sacrifice were never separate. I approached my work the same way I approached my love of conduct: as a builder, a creator, someone constructing what I envisioned and leaving nothing to chance, mitigating the risk of even a moment lived without purpose. Committed to experience and beauty and the love of spirit, I lived with the belief and what felt like proof that if I worked hard enough, planned carefully enough, and remained devoted to improvement, the more profound human aspects, such as spirituality, intellectual pleasure, and emotional fulfillment, would arrive on their own. I only needed to lay the tracks. I assumed understanding, timing, and wisdom would naturally follow once the visible work and confirmation to my senses were undeniable. What I did not realize was that the skill that mattered most, the one that would ultimately transform my existence and my relationships, was not something I could see, touch, feel, hear, smell, or taste. It was not visible at all. It belonged to the category of things I assumed would take care of themselves if I were disciplined enough to live an examined, well-lived reality.
Whether innate or shaped through observation as I grew and matured, I came to believe that vitality was shaped entirely by purposeful intention. When something failed to work, maybe a relationship, a decision, or a season of my lifestyle, I tried to fix it the only way I knew how: by adding more effort, more thinking, more explanation, more force, more control. Wasn’t it my responsibility to build an existence I could eventually look back on without regret, one I could reach the end of and say, well done? For me, clarity came from that assertion, from believing meaning could be pressed into place if I pushed hard enough and demanded transformation. It was unsettling to discover that my diligence, the very trait I trusted most, was often working against me.
At one of my lowest points, I realized that one’s lot was more than experience, sensation, and action. Viability, I found, communicates just as clearly when it is encountered quietly, indirectly, and without urgency. Being a fixer revealed its limits in moments that required no solution, situations that asked for no action, and questions that had no immediate answers. I flailed there. I didn’t know how to stand still. I wanted so much more from destiny than what I believed I had been given that I failed to notice what was already present. When this recognition arrived, it did so subtly, yet with quiet unease. The problems that continued to trouble me were not rooted in lack of effort or achievement. They stemmed from failure to listen to things that did not need to be, but were, without asking for my attention.
Hearing and choosing when not to attend was what I had missed. Discernment. Not paying attention for approval or instruction, but being attentive for boundaries, for signals, for the difference between what wanted to be rushed and what needed time. I had to hear the quiet truth that some things were not asking me to act, repair, or improve; they were asking me to stop interfering. And yet, I wasn’t taking heed.
To my surprise, taking into account itself became an act. It was not passive. It required restraint and patience. Concentrating asked me to tolerate uncertainty without rushing to resolve it. It asked me to leave unfinished things unfinished, to resist tidying them up or wrapping them up prematurely. Keeping my ears open meant trusting that clarity sometimes arrived only after I stopped demanding it.
At first, this felt unproductive. From the outside, monitoring resembled hesitation, pausing instead of advancing, waiting instead of fixing. When I stopped pushing, I felt lost. In doing nothing, I wondered what I was doing at all. There were fewer markers of progress, no surge of momentum, no thrill of accomplishment. Slowing down felt uncomfortable in a world and in my own world that rewarded decisiveness and speed. And yet, something began to change.
When I took note instead of forcing outcomes, the quality of my decisions shifted. My perceptions changed. I stopped shaping results that didn’t truly fit. I recognized when something was complete rather than refining it beyond necessity. I learned, often uncomfortably, that others did not always want solutions; they wanted to be heard. Silence, I discovered, could carry weight without being filled, and tuning in altered my understanding of doubt. Uncertainty became information rather than a shortcoming. Things were not broken; they were unresolved, and that distinction mattered. It gave me patience I had never practiced before.
I came to understand that the apparent inactivity of focusing was itself a form of action. It was not instinctive. Like any skill, it was built slowly through humility, repetition, and restraint. It sharpened not through effort, but by stepping back and allowing actuality to reveal itself without interruption. Once perceived, it grew. It became the foundation beneath every visible skill, every tangible accomplishment. Everything I did depended on this quiet test for its truest execution.
The quietness began to permeate my continuation. I found myself longing for it. No amount of effort could replace it. No amount of planning could override it. Without lending an ear, progress dissolved into noise. A new reality had come. And in returning to the full circle, I discovered something unexpected: even stillness had direction. I had not underestimated listening because I considered it unimportant. I underestimated it because it was quiet.
Clay Stafford is a bestselling writer, filmmaker, and founder of the Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference, Killer Nashville Magazine, and the Killer Nashville University streaming service. Subscribe to his newsletter at https://claystafford.com/.
THE CHAIR IS STILL THERE
On mornings when creativity feels hollow and momentum seems absent, Clay Stafford learned a crucial lesson: the work of a life isn’t built on inspiration or certainty. In “The Chair Is Still There,” he reflects on how discipline, presence, and the simple act of returning to his chair—cup of coffee in hand—reframe his creative life, strengthen his relationship to his art, and allow meaning to emerge without fanfare.
By Clay Stafford
Mostly working from home for the majority of my life, there was no boss to meet, no comptroller checking my clock-in for work, no meetings I had to be on time for, only me, waking up and stretching in bed, thinking of how I envisioned my day to play out.
Most days were and are filled with excitement. I knew what I was going to do. I loved what I did. I was blessed to be able to do it. Most mornings were filled with ambition and excitement, so I couldn’t wait to get to work and get started. But there were those dreaded mornings when I awoke, stared at the ceiling, and realized there was no fuel in the creative engine for the day. On those mornings, there was no urgency to get out of bed, no spark inspiring me to begin. There wasn’t even resistance. In the dim light of the morning sun coming through the cracks of the closed plantation shutters, there was simply a hollow quiet where momentum typically was and should have been. Those moments felt empty, nothing resembling the welcomed heaviness of life, just a distant void, as though everything that normally mattered had somehow, during the night while I was dreaming, slipped down the hallway to another bedroom and closed the door, sometimes even locking it behind it, climbing into the bed and pulling the covers over its head.
Those were days that felt like failures even before they began, and because I predetermined them while lying in bed, they usually turned out as I expected. I used to think I could only show up for my life when my inner world was in agreement, when want and purpose matched, when I knew why I was doing something, and when the effort made sense. I could only do things when I felt like it or when the meaning was clear. When that alignment was absent, I assumed the day was already lost and a wasted day of failure lay ahead. I felt it in my heart and even in my bones. I hadn’t yet learned that the real discipline of my life wasn’t built on feeling ready, but on returning.
It wasn’t until later in my life, when maybe maturity or practice, or even serendipitous events, proved me wrong, that I realized these mornings were simply a different kind of threshold, their own unique entry into a day that, at first glance, felt formless and uninspired. Somewhere along the way, I learned that discipline, what I needed to create the perfect day, was less about preplanning, force, or even intention, but more about presence.
I don’t know when my thinking started to shift. I certainly didn’t make it happen. I didn’t will it. It certainly wasn’t some trite self-help or productivity hack. It didn’t even arrive with some revelation. It came oddly and unplanned, as a habit. Whether I had the vision for the day or not, I got my coffee as usual, set up my desk, and sat down in my chair to work, even when I didn’t know what I wanted to work on or, if I did, even when I wasn’t inspired. Motivation didn’t earn me a spot at my desk. Routine did. On those days, I kept the bar low. I didn’t promise much to those hours except the assurance to my computer that I’ll be close by if needed. No plans were negotiated, no meaning defined, and rarely was any enthusiasm offered to the Muse as tribute. Sometimes on those days, I thought my purpose in life was to drink a cup of coffee, watch my birdfeeder, and ponder, in the world of evolution, what crazy lizard found itself jumping out of a tree and realizing it could fly, thus creating a new species of birds. In other words, with no plans or inspiration, I sat there because I didn’t know what else to do.
It surprised me at some point how little was required to sit there. It was freeing. Even on those hollow mornings, the chair was still there, waiting. I didn’t need conviction. I didn’t need direction. I didn’t need to believe that anything I was doing mattered. I only needed not to leave. I needed to sit with whatever drifted through my mind. The common thread behind it all was my chair, on productive days and on days of nothing. It was always sitting there, consistent, no matter where my head was. So, I returned to it, some days with more fervor than others, but always with a refusal to hand over control to the weather outside (I write outside on my porch) or even the weather, no matter how calm or turbulent, going on inside of me.
Those neutral days of nothingness were not heroic. They were days that neither lifted nor dragged, days that offered no motivational or dramatic reason or inspiration to move forward, but at the same time, no compelling reason not to be there. It seemed on those days that the world asked nothing of me other than attendance in that chair, across the lawn from the birdfeeder, pondering the processes of the past few million years.
When I think back on my own evolution now, what strikes me is not how much time I wasted sitting there, but rather how honest those hours were. Out of boredom, I did begin to tinker, but without the need or motivation to impress, accelerate, or aim beyond the moment, I moved straight to the essentials as they popped into my head. It was all rather casual. There was no adornment, no performance, no word count, no chasing of superiority. Just small, impulsive, inner-driven activities, whether rain or shine, just some sort of private continuity with days more productive, but with no invisible audience or ego applauding, but at the same time nothing left undone. When inspired, sitting in the chair, I did what I felt inspired to do, letting direction come from the nothingness.
Over time, something shifted. Those neutral (I wouldn’t call them wasted) days, those unremarkable returns to the chair each morning, began to alter the way I understood myself in the same way that I could envision lizards growing wings millions of years ago. I don’t think I ever patted myself on my back for my consistency of sitting in a chair (that hardly seems a heroic act), but I did begin to trust it as an inkling of something I couldn’t put my finger on began to take form in my consciousness, in my being. Showing up and sitting down, I began to sense that I did not need to feel aligned with my work or even with myself to remain connected. Just drink coffee and watch the birds, and occasionally look at my computer screen. I didn’t need the weather, inside or out, to give me permission. Before I stepped into the day, I needed to go to my chair and sit. And, surprise to me, somewhere along the way, my fingers would find their way to the keyboard, and I would start to type. Somewhere by the end of the day, I would pause and look back on all that I had accomplished, even though I had had no preplanned direction.
Trust accumulated in ways I couldn’t have articulated then, but it did soften the drama around the difficulty of being aimless. It quieted the argument between desire and duty. It reframed commitment as identity rather than effort. I began to see that most of what endures in life is built not on bursts of certainty but on the steady, unimpressive, evolutionary cadence of return.
The curious, but also understandable, thing is that the work of my life didn’t constantly improve in those days, but my relationship with my work, and even myself, did. Sitting down in my chair became less conditional, less dependent on mood or inspiration, or the unpredictable tides of self-belief or raw motivation. Sitting down in my chair became, instead, something like a morning welcome, a companionship, coming with the predictability and comfort of knowing that the sun will rise each day and I will sit: steady, imperfect, patient.
Looking back, I never found the dramatic clarity I once believed I needed to move forward. I saw something quieter. I discovered that life continues, like birds in flight, even when eagerness does not. I found that meaning doesn’t always come hand in hand with willingness. I discovered that neutrality is fertile in its own way. We don’t need a parade; we only need a chair.
I once thought that discipline was a loud, cinematic declaration, something founded in great ambition or proven with relentless, knock-the-walls-down drive, but the truth, for me, instead lived in a place outside on the back porch, an ordinary chair, waiting without fanfare, and asking for nothing other than my presence. “Come as you are,” it called. “If nothing else,” it said in its Southern way, “just sit a spell.”
Perhaps the unexpected lesson for me is this: the parts of life that endure are not always those born from passion, certainty, or predetermination while lying in the bed in the morning and staring at the ceiling with the morning light coming in through the shutters, but instead it is from the steady, unremarkable decision to get my coffee, in my routine, and sit in my chair long enough for meaning to find its way back. The chair is always waiting.
Clay Stafford is a bestselling writer, filmmaker, and founder of the Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference, Killer Nashville Magazine, and the Killer Nashville University streaming service. Subscribe to his newsletter at https://claystafford.com/.
Why I Hate Self-Publishing
Self-publishing used to mean your book was too bad for anyone else to touch. But the world’s changed, and so have the rules. Here's a candid look at the past, present, and future of indie publishing—and why giving away your work might just be your smartest move yet.
By Steven Womack
Some time ago, I gave a talk at the monthly meeting of the Middle Tennessee Chapter of Sisters-In-Crime. A week or so before that, I’d read an installment of Clay Stafford’s writing blog that put forth the proposition that writers should not give their work away. A writer’s work has meaning, Clay wrote. It has value and to give it away for free sends the wrong message to readers and to the world in general.
I’ve known Clay Stafford a good couple of decades now and have always regarded him as a wise and successful friend. When he speaks, I listen—and usually take notes.
This time, however, I had to disagree.
It’s not that I disagree with his notion that a writer’s work has value. It does, even if sometimes it’s only to the writer him/herself. All writers put an enormous amount of work and heart in to getting those words onto a page. But that doesn’t always automatically translate into value, especially value measured in sales/dollars. When there are roughly 2.2 million new books published every year (according to UNESCO), the competition is pretty rough out there and it’s hard to convince an audience that your book has value; in other words, it’s worth reading.
So I put forth the notion—based on my own experience—that the best way to get attention for your book was to give it away. In February, I had my first BookBub Featured Deal and in a four-day period gave away 24,897 eBook copies of the latest installment in my Music City Murders Harry James Denton series, Fade Up From Black. Through the rest of the month, that resulted in over 200,000 page reads. And since Amazon’s policy is to pay page reads on book giveaways if the book’s enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, I made money giving stuff away.
Enough to pay for the BookBub Featured Deal, anyway.
While I’ve given up predicting the future, I feel confident that at least a few of the people who downloaded those nearly 25,000 copies will like the book well enough to actually go out and buy the other installments.
It’s a whole new world out there, marketing-wise. Marketing in the internet age has a very long tail, and to riff on my old pal Larry Beinhart, sometimes the tail wags the dog.
***
After my talk, Clay wrote me a very complimentary note and asked if I’d be interested in writing a monthly column for Killer Nashville Magazine on self-publishing. I was very flattered, but the first obstacle to overcome was my loathing of the term self-publishing. Loathing? Seems kind of harsh. Why would anyone loathe a term like self-publishing, especially since some of the greatest writers in history published their own work?
Disgusted with his usual publisher, Mark Twain formed a publishing company to publish The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Charles Dickens’s regular publisher showed little interest in A Christmas Carol, so Dickens hired artists and editors and paid for the printing himself. Beatrix Potter literally couldn’t interest anyone in publishing The Tale of Peter Rabbit, so she borrowed the money to print 250 copies. At latest count, there are some 45 million copies of THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT in print. Walt Whitman self-published Leaves of Grass. The rest, as they say, is history.
In our lifetimes, the stories of self-published books that sold gazillions are apocryphal. Amanda Hocking, Andy Weir, Margaret Atwood, John Grisham, Scott Adams… all have, at some point in their careers, published their own work. And let’s not forget that whole Fifty Shades of Grey thing.
So why such distaste for the term?
I confess here that I’m an old guy. I began seriously writing in 1970, fresh out of boarding school and working on my first novel. There was no Internet then, no such thing as an eBook, and everything was old school; no respectable publisher would consider an unrepresented book, so you queried one agent at a time and if they took six months or a year to get back to you, tough noogies. They were the gatekeepers and they made the rules.
Then, like now, it seemed that every sumbitch who knew how to type thought they could be an arthur (a term coined by the wonderful Molly Ivins, when someone introduced me to her as a mystery writer—Great to meet you, we arthurs gotta stick together…)
Then, as now, there were dozens of predators out there preying on the hopes and dreams of aspiring writers. Self-publishing then was a synonym for vanity publishing, and the vanity presses were raking it in from the naïve rubes. Vantage Press, Pageant Press, and Exposition were three leading vanity presses that were, by the 1950s, “publishing” over 100 titles a year each.
Even I got roped in myself when I paid $400 to have the legendary Scott Meredith Agency read a novel of mine. Meredith, being one smart cookie, had created a whole separate company to sucker in aspiring writers like moi. I got notes back from some office drone, supposedly signed by Meredith, who needless to say, didn’t take me on as a client.
Not one of those books published by a vanity press had a chance of being reviewed by anybody, let alone a respectable press like the New York Times. No bookstore would carry them.
Writers have always been easy pickings for predators. The most egregious case in history was The Famous Writer’s School, founded in 1961 by Bennett Cerf, a Random House editor and regular panelist on the TV show What’s My Line? There isn’t enough space here to go into that con job, but it made millions by paying writers as diverse as Mignon Eberhart, Rod Serling, Bruce Catton, and Faith Baldwin to join their “faculty.” The suckers thought their stuff was being read and critiqued by Rod Serling, when in reality the work was being done by unknown copy editors. There’s not room enough here to really relate the history of this scam, but Google it. It’s an object lesson for us all.
If not self-publishing, then what?
The world of publishing today bears no resemblance to the publishing world I came of age in, and that’s a good thing. I’m already over my word allotment that Clay gave me for this column, so over the next few months (or however long this little adventure goes on), I’m going to talk about these changes and how my own experience in This Crazy Writing Life have shaped me and my career. To me, it’s not self-publishing. Self-publishing means your stuff’s so bad, you’re the only who’ll touch it.
I prefer the term independent publishing. Going forward, I’m going to talk about how we, as writers, can take control of our work and careers, take back the power from the gatekeepers, and become the kinds of writers we want to be, with the kinds of careers and lives we want to have.
This’ll be a journey we’ll share. After all, as Molly Ivins once said: We arthurs gotta stick together…
Killer Nashville Interview with Alan Bradley
Alan Bradley is the New York Times bestselling author of the award-winning Flavia de Luce mystery series. His first novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie received the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger Award, the Agatha Award, the Barry Award, the Dilys Award, the Arthur Ellis Award, the Macavity Award and the Spotted Owl Award. Recently, Mr. Bradley took a bit of time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions for Killer Nashville. The author discusses his protagonist and the unique choices made in creating her, his writing process, and offers advice to those who—like Bradley—began their writing careers a little later in the game. Thanks to Liz Gatterer for conducting this interview.
Enjoy!
A Killer Nashville Interview
with
ALAN BRADLEY
KN: When I first looked at the press release for The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place and saw that the story was about a 12-year-old girl, I assumed this was a children’s book, or a middle-grade book and was intrigued that was not how it was categorized. Who do you write your books for?
I write my books for people who are interested in the same kind of things I’m interested in. I dote on curiosities and wonder, and I have been accused of possessing a magpie mind. Fortunately, there are vast numbers of readers of all ages who share my enthusiasms. I have heard of a four-year-old girl who insists upon having the books read aloud to her, then acting them out with herself as Flavia, her father as Dogger, and her mother as Mrs. Mullet.
KN: I must admit, I am a new Flavia fan. I enjoyed The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place so much I have now binge read/listened to the entire series from the beginning. By the way, the narrator, Jayne Entwistle is just fantastic! There is an incredible amount of information in each book. How long does it take to research one of your books? Do you squirrel away factoids for use “at some point” or is it a more focused practice?
Yes, Jayne is incredible. I recently had the opportunity of speaking to her “live” during an internet broadcast. I think we were both in tears of laughter and recognition!
Some of the facts in the Flavia books are titbits I’ve been saving up for years, while others come to light during research. Because I’m a great fan of ancient and outdated reference books, it’s often harder to decide what to leave out than what to put in. In general, it takes about nine months to a year to write each book, a substantial amount of which is research. It’s not always easy to find out, for instance, what the weather was like in England at a certain hour of a certain day in 1952, or whether the 10:32 from Waterloo ran on Sundays in November.
KN: I have read at first you thought this would be a six-book series, and then a ten-book series. Well, The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place is book 9… Is book 10 in the works? Will that be the end of the series? (Please say no) Are there any plans for your next series?
In spite of reports to the contrary, I’m presently working on a tenth book. Beyond that? I don’t know. I’m sure my lovely publishers would be happy to continue, but, as Sherlock once so wisely remarked, “It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts.”
KN: Although the character of Flavia de Luce has certainly developed over the series, she has not really aged. She was 11 in Book 1: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and now in Book 9: The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place she is 12. It has been quite a year for the young girl! Is Flavia destined to be a pre-adolescent forever?
Flavia at 18, for instance, would be a completely different person than she is now, and perhaps not half so interesting. At any rate, there’s still much to be told about her present circumstances, and I’ve never been one for rushing things.
KN: As an author that really began to write in earnest after retirement and who published an award-winning novel after 70, what advice or words of encouragement (or words of warning) would you give to others who are just beginning their writing later in the game?
First of all, my heartiest congratulations to anyone who manages to get published at 60 and beyond! At that age, it seems unlikely that you’ll be changed: your life will be, but you won’t.
My best advice would be, as has been said so many times before, never give up. I was once told that real success takes ten years, but in my case, it took fifteen. To summarize: apply bottom to chair, write, and keep writing.
As Philip Van Doren Stern (author of the book that inspired the film “It’s a Wonderful Life”) once said, “The only thing that’s important is the manuscript. All the rest is just bubbles on the horse-piss.
Many thanks to Alan Bradley for taking time to answer our questions and to Sharon Propson from Random House Publishing for facilitating this interview.
Blending Humor and Tension in a Traditional Mystery / Author Nancy J. Cohen
There’s nothing funny about murder. Or is there? Mystery, romance, and how-to author Nancy J. Cohen navigates the delicate balance between bloodshed and laughter in her guest blog, “Blending Humor and Tension in a Traditional Mystery.” Here’s a great way to laugh your way into the perfect crime. And for even more great tips from Nancy, check out her book “Writing the Cozy Mystery.”
Happy Reading! (And Happy Writing – using Nancy’s excellent advice).
Clay Stafford,
Founder of Killer Nashville
Nancy J Cohen (Photo by Lasky)
How do you maintain tension in a humorous mystery? First, look at the source of humor. If it’s the sleuth’s wry attitude toward life, humor is inherent to how she’ll view things. It’s in her nature, and no matter the circumstances, her attitude will prevail. Or perhaps the humor is situational. This can be momentary, or it can relate to a subplot that lasts throughout the story. Regardless of the source of your story’s humor, it doesn’t negate the fact that a murder has taken place. Someone’s family is grieving. As the sleuth gets closer to the truth, the killer will increase his attempts to stop her. So tension builds toward a confrontation we know is coming. Foreshadowing can aid in this suspense as can other writing techniques. It’s a delicate balance between the two elements. If your readers expect a humorous story, you can’t kill off a favorite character or go serious with a child in jeopardy or a rape scene. You have to conform to reader expectations of the genre, especially in a cozy mystery. Your story can still be suspenseful. The sleuth has to uncover the clues before someone else gets hurt or killed. In my writing guide, Writing the Cozy Mystery, I detail some of the techniques a writer can use to raise tension. The trick is to blend these elements with the humor inherent in your story. For example, in Shear Murder, Marla—my hairdresser sleuth—discovers a dead body under the cake table at her friend’s wedding. She summons her fiancé, Detective Dalton Vail. Imagining the look on his face will elicit a smile from fans of my Bad Hair Day series. Here’s a brief excerpt:
Catching Dalton’s eye, she signaled frantically. He’d know what to do. When he reached her side, she sagged against him. “Don’t look now, but there’s a dead body under the table,” she murmured under her breath. “What?” “You heard me.” She smiled tremulously at a couple who strolled past. Could they tell she was sweating? That her face had lost its color? That she was about to lose her dinner? Dalton half bent, his dark hair falling forward, but then he straightened with a grin. “Good one, Marla. You almost got me.” She shuffled her feet. “I’m not kidding.” Any minute they’d call for the cake, or Jill would broaden the hunt for her sister. Chewing on her bottom lip, she lifted a portion of the drape so Dalton could see for himself. Her stomach heaved as she almost stepped on a trickle of congealing blood. “Holy Mother, you aren’t joking.” He gave her an incredulous glance that she read as, Not again.
But even funnier is the subsequent scene where Marla tries to keep the bride from discovering the murder until after the cake cutting ceremony. She has to prevent the bride and groom from coming over. So Marla decides to bring the cake to them. It was fun to write this scene where Marla and Dalton carry the heavy cake toward the newlyweds. They’re interrupted en route, and Marla sweats as the cake on its piece of cardboard gets heavier and heavier. This incident is a perfect example of humor blended with tension.
"Hanging By A Hair" by Nancy J. Cohen
Another example comes in Hanging By A Hair, #11 in the Bad Hair Day series. Dalton and Marla have wed and moved into a new neighborhood. At their first homeowners’ meeting, Dalton gets into an altercation with the president who happens to be their next-door neighbor. Cherry, the community’s treasurer, warns Marla and Dalton about the fellow.
“That man has secrets to hide. Better not push him. You don’t know what he’ll do.” Marla got an inkling of what Cherry meant when a plastic bag of dog poop showed up on their circular driveway the next day. She’d just stepped outside at seven o’clock on Friday morning with Lucky and Spooks—their golden retriever and cream-colored poodle— when she noticed the item lying on the asphalt. Hauling on the dogs’ leashes, she veered over to verify her observation. Then she rushed back inside to inform her husband. “I’ll bet it’s him,” Dalton said, rising from the breakfast table where he sat drinking coffee and watching the news. “Let me get my fingerprint kit. I can prove it.”
The absurdity of Dalton checking the plastic bag for fingerprints elicits a chuckle from readers who’ve already come to know these characters. And where did this scene spring from? Personal experience. We found the same thing on our driveway one day, a gift from a nasty neighbor. Lots of personal incidences make their way into my stories, but that’s fodder for another blog. As you can see, humor stems from your characters or the situation. Raising a chuckle while the tension rises works well in a traditional mystery. Let it evolve naturally, and readers will come back for more.
Nancy J. Cohen writes the Bad Hair Day mystery series featuring hairdresser Marla Shore, who solves crimes with wit and style under the sultry Florida sun. Several of these titles have made the IMBA bestseller list. Nancy is also the author of Writing the Cozy Mystery, a valuable instructional guide for mystery writers. Her imaginative romances have also proven popular with fans. Her titles in this genre have won the HOLT Medallion and Best Book in Romantic SciFi/Fantasy at The Romance Reviews. Active in the writing community and a featured speaker at libraries and conferences, Nancy is listed in Contemporary Authors, Poets & Writers, and Who’s Who in U.S. Writers, Editors, & Poets. Currently, she is serving as President of Florida Chapter, Mystery Writers of America. When not busy writing, she enjoys reading, fine dining, cruising, and outlet shopping. Visit her website at http://nancyjcohen.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
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