KN Magazine: Articles
ACCOUNTABILITY BEGINS WITH INTENTION
In “Accountability Begins with Intention,” Clay Stafford reframes accountability as something that starts long before action. Rather than focusing on deadlines or performance, he emphasizes the importance of setting clear, purposeful intentions that guide consistent behavior—arguing that true accountability is rooted in clarity, commitment, and personal ownership.
Most people think about accountability only after a project begins—such as showing up, meeting deadlines, providing progress reports, and doing check-ins to gauge your status. They consider the consequences if you fail to show up. But true accountability doesn’t start once you begin a project and hope to complete it. It actually starts before taking the first step. Accountability begins in that quiet moment when you decide what you truly want to do. It starts before you ever take any action.
This quiet moment is where intentions reside. So, what is accountability, the motivation that will carry you over a designated finish line? It is establishing clear intentions before you begin working on a project. This step is where many people stumble because it provides the guardrails that guide you along the path to your completed goal. Intentions. It’s that simple. Without clear intentions, accountability can become frustrating, confusing, and often discouraging. With clear intentions, accountability becomes empowering. Let’s explore how to achieve that practically, simply, and in a way you can implement immediately.
Most people start projects by identifying something they want to achieve, which motivates them to work hard to reach it. They feel excited, inspired, and energized. However, the problem is that motivation is emotional, and that’s okay. You need positive feelings and eager anticipation to keep moving forward. Underneath this, whether recognized or not, are intentions. Motivation says: I want to do this. Intentions say: This is what I’m doing, and this is how I will measure my success. Without clear intentions, motivation often fades quickly as other distractions take over. When motivation fades, we often think we have failed. Having clear intentions from the beginning helps avoid confusion. Intentions give your goal direction, even before you start.
Let’s clear up a common misunderstanding. An intention is not a wish; it’s not a vague desire, nor is it just a motivational phrase. An intention is a specific purpose that guides our actions and decisions. It always answers three key questions: What am I trying to accomplish? Why does this matter? What does success look like? If you can’t clearly answer these questions, accountability becomes guesswork because you don’t have measurable goals. Relying only on guesswork leads to burnout, as you have no clear endpoint for success.
There is a cost to starting without clear intentions. Most abandoned projects don’t fail because of a lack of ability; they fail because of a lack of clarity. When clear goals aren’t defined, you begin quickly but veer off course soon after. You will likely lose focus midway because you don’t know your destination or how to recognize when you’ve arrived. You might question whether the effort is worth it because you can’t seem to get to a place you’re not sure you want to reach. You feel overwhelmed by choices because you haven’t set initial guardrails. Without that framework, you struggle to measure progress. Ultimately, the frustration of moving forward without a compass replaces momentum, and the project stalls—not because of a lack of discipline, but because of a lack of direction. Accountability relies on direction, and direction requires intention. I’ve seen this happen more times than I can count. Early in one project with my team, we started moving fast because everyone was excited. We had ideas, energy, and momentum—but we had never clearly defined what success actually looked like. Within weeks, tasks multiplied, priorities shifted, and frustration began to creep in. Once we stopped, wrote down exactly what we intended to accomplish, and defined what success meant, everything changed. Progress became measurable, decisions became easier, and accountability finally had something solid to stand on.
There are several ways I’ve found to make intention work. The first is to clearly define the outcome I want. This means that before starting any project, I should pause and ask myself: what does this finished task actually look like? Not in theory or emotionally, but in practical terms. For example, if you’re writing a book, thinking the goal is to “finish the book” is too vague. You’ll never reach that. A clearer goal would be to “complete a 70,000-word first draft in six months.” That line contains many specifics, and that’s what you want. If you’re launching a new project, “getting started” isn’t an outcome. Instead, “launching a website that offers three core services or highlights my skills by June 1” is detailed. It gives you a concrete target to work toward. Clarity and specifics like these turn dreams into actual plans. Then, plans help create accountability.
The second thing, important not only to me but also to my team, is “why does this matter?” I always try to frame what I want within the idea of “a worthy goal.” I have a definition of “worthy” for our team, but you’ll have your own. Unfortunately, this is a step most people skip, and it’s often why projects lose momentum. You really need to know, and emotionally connect with, why this project matters to you. Not to others, not to your audience, not to social media, but to you, because when obstacles arise—which they will—the emotional and intellectual strength of your reason will determine whether you keep going or give up. So, I always do this: I write out a sentence that says, “This project matters because…” and then finish it honestly. “This project matters because I want to prove to myself I can finish what I start.” “This project matters because it creates new opportunities for my future.” “This project matters because it allows me to share something meaningful.” When the “why” is personal, accountability becomes internal rather than forced.
It’s important to see the end game. What does success in this venture look like? Here’s a truth that often surprises many: success must be measured. You can’t specify everything, but you should have an idea of what the end game will look like. Without measurements, you won’t know if the project is succeeding or how well it’s doing. You also won’t know if you’re on track for success if a timeline is included. You can address this by defining the final result and dividing it by time. For example, here are some specific tasks: write 500 words per day, complete one module per week, send five outreach emails daily. This gives you daily tasks and makes achievement measurable. They create forward momentum, which will strengthen your accountability.
Intentions, like those outlined above, don’t just specify what you will do; they also define what you will not do. You set goals and steps to achieve them, but you also establish boundaries you won’t cross, along with a clear idea of what counts as successful completion. It’s crucial to see the big goal and then plan it out strategically into smaller goals, because without that, unnecessary tasks can sneak in, expectations might shift, and you’ll likely get stressed. Instead, before you start, ask yourself, “What am I committing to? And what am I not committing to?” These boundaries will keep you grounded. Keep it simple. “I will work on this project for one hour each morning.” “I will not add new features until the first version is finished.” “I will not compare this work to others during the drafting phase.” These types of boundaries help protect your focus, which is essential for successfully completing your project.
This next step seems simple, but it is incredibly powerful. Write down your intentions. Not only can you see them, but if you’re working with a team, they can see them as well. Thoughts can disappear, become muddled, slip away, and lead to misunderstandings. Written intentions are concrete; they stay clear. When you write down your intentions, the plan becomes visible to everyone, including yourself. It can be reviewed and, if necessary, amended. Why? Because all the steps are laid out. It’s not a fixed manifesto that can’t change, but rather a working document. It creates clarity. For example, “My intention is to complete the first draft of my novel within six months by writing 500 words each weekday. This matters because I want to build consistency in my creative life. Success means finishing a complete draft, not a perfect one.” There you go—simple enough. Because you do this, you’ll have a better chance of achieving your goal, as this statement serves as your daily anchor. It provides guidance through the challenges that come with any project.
I mentioned team members. Accountability strengthens when documents are shared because the team performs better when they know. However, choose carefully. Share your intentions only with your team, trusted friends, mentors, and collaborators—of course, not with everyone. Public declarations can create pressure. Let the public see the results only after things are accomplished. Private accountability, on the other hand, fosters responsibility and brings the added benefit of encouragement. During this phase of any project, you don’t need applause (skip the public), but you do need guided alignment and support (your private core).
You wrote this down for a reason. Your document and your private declaration to yourself or those closest to you are not fixed goals. They can change over time. Every mountain you climb will help you see further, and then you’ll climb another. This is normal. Your written statement is a living guide. Having it in writing helps you review your intentions regularly and adjust them when needed. I recommend reviewing your written statement at least weekly. Ask yourself, “Am I still working toward the defined outcome?” “Does the purpose still feel meaningful?” “Do the success measures still apply?” If something seems off, make adjustments as needed. But beware of your motives. Don’t abandon a direction you’ve already committed to after deep reflection. Ensure it still connects to your original plan.
People often confuse goals with intentions, but they are not the same. They are related, yes, but they differ. Goals focus on results, while intentions focus on behavior and direction. One is the destination; the other is the journey. A goal is to “Finish the project.” An intention is to “Work consistently on the project for one hour daily.” Goals measure completion. Intentions guide actions. This brings us back to accountability. Accountability depends on action, not just outcomes—actions.
What are some mistakes that weaken accountability? Being too vague. Vague intentions lead to vague results. Be specific. Being unrealistic. Ambition is good, but unrealistic expectations are useless. If your schedule doesn’t allow you to do a task for an hour daily, set it for 30 minutes or whatever you know will work. Just like time, don’t ignore your personal capacity. Energy matters as much as time. To achieve what you hope to, you need to be prepared for the challenge.
When your intentions are clear, you understand what to do, why it matters, how to track your progress, and when you’re succeeding or falling short. That clarity builds confidence, confidence encourages consistency, consistency promotes accountability, and accountability leads to the results you want: results.
If you take nothing else from this article, remember this: there are four steps to every act of intention: 1) My intention is to…, 2) This matters because…, 3) Success will look like…, and 4) I will commit to…. That’s it. Short. Clear. Actionable. Achievable. Use these steps for anything you want to accomplish. You’ll notice a difference.
Whenever we start a project, clarity is essential; we must understand our goals, have direction, and keep momentum. When intentions are clear, accountability feels different. Desperation, stress, and pressure all lessen when intentions are clear. Negative emotions are replaced with purpose because you are no longer guessing. You’ve made your decision beforehand. Once you decide, accountability shifts from pressure to following through on a commitment you made to yourself before taking that first big step. A plan in action is a practical and successful plan. Accountability doesn’t begin with effort; it begins with intention.
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 HABIT OF FORWARD
In “The Habit of Forward,” Clay Stafford explores the quiet discipline of continuing to move ahead—especially when motivation fades or clarity is uncertain. Through reflection and experience, he reveals how progress is less about inspiration and more about consistency, showing that forward motion, no matter how small, is what ultimately shapes both the work and the writer.
I didn’t realize when moving forward stopped being a conscious decision and became an ingrained habit. Initially, forward motion felt like discovery. Each new task I completed, each small success I achieved, fostered the sense that movement was shaping my future. I believed, even if I couldn’t articulate it then, that standing still carried risks I didn’t fully understand, that slowing down meant I was destined to live the life I had been given, even the life that was expected of me, not the one I truly desired. When I paused, my mind became habitually restless, always scanning for the next thing that might propel me further. I started writing and making 8mm movies. I sold a short story at ten. I became a publisher of a tabloid filled with gossip, short stories, and essays in the fourth grade and sold the newspapers to the student body for ten cents a copy. These early successes, though small, on my path to becoming who I would grow into, did not remain isolated. The process, the discipline, the passion, stacked into patterns that laid the foundation of my future self. Selling onions, homemade cinnamon toothpicks, a newspaper, stories, poems, and, later, soda and candy out of my school locker led to saving coins. Saving coins enabled me to buy animals and a farm before I even reached puberty. Buying animals meant watching them grow, multiply, and produce something tangible that had once only existed as a dream in my mind. Each step of creating, selling, reinvesting, and buying built upon the last, until the constant motion began to feel less like a series of actions and more like a compulsive current carrying me forward, whether I fought it or not.
There were mornings when I woke up already thinking about what needed to be done, long before anyone in the house moved. After doing morning exercises while watching Jack LaLanne and his white German Shepherd, Happy, on my small black-and-white TV, I often fixed breakfast myself because my mother liked to sleep until 10:00 and my dad left for work early. The day stretched out before me like a path already laid, formed in my sleep. I didn’t yet know to call it ambition. To me, it was simply a necessity, a compulsion. I felt responsible for actively moving the day forward, as if time itself might slow down or break apart if I didn’t keep it going.
I valued each night lying in the dark, listening to the window air conditioner and humidifier, both of which I had to have because I was a sickly child. I learned to measure days by how much I accomplished, rather than by reflecting on what I had become. A day that moved forward felt successful. Days when money was added to my piggy bank, hidden in the closet, felt successful. A day that didn’t yield the desired results felt wasted, and sometimes I’d struggle to sleep because of guilt and failure. Childhood was a stressful time, filled with disappointment: in myself, in the life I had been given, and in the family that kept me, not as a child to be loved, but as an example to their world that we were a traditional family, and that this was what was expected of parents like mine: to have a child. No one ever mentioned that the child should be nurtured and loved. Lying in the dark, seeking sleep that often didn’t come because of my early insomnia, it became clear to me that, at least in my mind, satisfaction and happiness could only follow successful effort. Finishing a task from the day left quiet proof that I was capable of shaping the world around me, that I didn’t have to accept the world I had been given. I was free, for this was true freedom, to build something beyond where I was, even if, as a child, I couldn’t yet imagine what that might be. To me, the proof and truth of this mattered more than praise. Often stressed, unhappy, and melancholy, the idea that I could design something bigger for myself mattered more than comfort. Somewhere along the way, movement stopped being just something I did and became something I was. It turned into a compulsion, and I was convinced that if I took action, results would follow; therefore, it was up to me to keep going.
I felt compelled to take action, even in the smallest routines: carrying buckets, feeding animals, selling onions and homemade cinnamon toothpicks, smuggling candies and sodas to kids in elementary school, writing stories, selling poems, and counting coins. It became an obsession: planning what might come next. I saw life as something that needed to be lived, something that had to be pushed forward, even forcefully. The idea of moving ahead and taking no prisoners grew stronger each week, leading to years of steady pushing. Every moment seemed to hold the potential for progress and for escape. Even rest started to feel temporary, a brief pause before moving on, a distraction even, so much so that I avoided going to bed and woke up early, getting ready for my day before sunrise. If I woke my parents, I knew I’d get a guaranteed beating, so I stayed in my room reading and writing until Jack LaLanne appeared, and then my day could begin.
There were moments when I sensed the shift but didn’t question it. I felt pride when work filled my hours. In school, I was constantly in trouble for daydreaming, staring out the window, or writing scripts instead of listening to math instruction. No punishment, not even Mrs. Running’s drill-holed paddle, could dampen the pride I felt when I was working. I was beaten at home, so why not at school? It didn’t matter to me as long as I was moving forward. When nothing demanded my attention, I felt uneasy and lost. Movement became essential. Being productive became normal. Stillness always carried a slight uneasiness, as if it revealed something I didn’t want to face. Movement became the only thing that mattered because it masked all of life’s uncertainties, even my own realities, with action. If I kept moving, I believed in my mind and heart that the future felt closer, more reachable, less abstract. One day, I would take the money from my hidden piggy bank and hop a train heading south or west.
The adults around me often talked about hard work, but their actions told a different story; their words seemed to fade into the background noise of their everyday laziness. They were stuck in their lives, living in leaky houses without electricity, running water, or a phone, because they lacked the drive to change. Their laziness taught me a lot, as did the emptiness of their conversations and the lack of effort in their actions. What stayed with me wasn’t what they said, but what I saw. I observed hands that sat still, as well as hands like my Grandmother Stafford’s that never rested for long. I saw bodies that moved despite exhaustion and bodies that never moved at all. I learned that survival depended on persistence, especially for a few in my family who tried to escape the poverty that seemed most natural and expected for most people I knew. These experiences shaped me, even though at my young age, I couldn’t yet put it into words. Consistent and deliberate forward movement became a direction I trusted more than any specific destination.
Throughout those early years, I developed a habit of seeing possibilities where others saw burdens. Chores became opportunities. Small responsibilities became proof that I was capable of more than that. Each task completed, each story, poem, or essay published strengthened the belief that effort drives movement and movement drives change. The cycle quietly fueled itself, without ceremony, bells, or whistles, until motion became a part of me, an understanding that it was the safest way to exist.
There were evenings when the world seemed to slow down after dinner, when the animals were settled and put to bed, and the air grew still. My parents watched television while I retreated to the backyard to lie in the grass and look at the stars, wondering if I would ever reach them. In those moments, I sometimes felt the quiet pressing in from all sides, but it did not feel peaceful. It felt unfamiliar. The absence of activity, the stillness and relaxation, left a hollowness in me that unsettled and even depressed me, as if something had gone missing because I had taken a moment to lie in the grass, listening to cicadas and frogs. I couldn’t stay still for long; I had to return to motion, whatever that might mean. Even in church, I practiced sleight-of-hand magic tricks beneath the back of the pew, sitting in a spot away from everyone and my family so they wouldn’t see what I was doing. I had to keep busy and keep improving, even as the preacher droned on about how much Jesus loved me. I often wondered if Jesus loved me that much and delivered people, when was he going to come and deliver me? I learned to rely on my own ability to do magic tricks. No one, not even Jesus, was coming to save me or heal the stripes on my back from childhood abuse. Everyone made a big deal about the blood flowing from the slices on Jesus’s back, but no one cared about me. I was alone and, if I wanted to escape, I had to do it myself. I always returned to motion.
Before I went to bed each night, I would stare at the ceiling in the darkness and look at the stars outside the windows built above the bookshelves my dad made for me to store my small library. I always planned the next day. I knew what needed to be done to make it successful, and if it wasn’t, I scolded my childhood self for a lack of discipline or for cowardice in letting adults change my plans. I vowed that one day I would not let anyone tell me what to do. In my mind, there was God, then me, then everyone else. I would only answer to God. So each night, I reaffirmed myself and what I hoped to see in the fog of my future. I counted what I had earned that day. I imagined what could be built from what I already possessed. Thinking about the next day’s movements reassured me. It gave shape to the uncertainty of my life. It created the illusion that time could be guided if only I worked hard enough, and working hard was what I intended to do.
What I didn’t realize in these early years was how easily my reputation became my identity. As I advanced in life, school, and ambition, the tasks increased, and the responsibilities expanded. The small successes of my childhood slowly hardened into not just actions and accomplishments but also into expectations. I came to believe that progress was not only desirable but essential. If movement created possibility, then stopping or even slowing down threatened it. This idea quietly settled into my mind, becoming less visible with each passing year. I began to feel most like myself and at peace when I was moving toward something. Not necessarily arriving or celebrating, but just moving. I achieved a lot, but there was rarely a moment to celebrate because, no matter what I accomplished, I always felt I fell short. Even success has its own form of failure.
The act of moving forward itself showed that my life had purpose. At home, feeling unwanted, I made my family my future, just like Jesus saying God could raise his children from rocks, not even from human parents. It became a sign that life was unfolding as it should. I was a rock. Even uncertainty felt tolerable as long as I kept moving. Stagnation, on the other hand, felt dangerous and deadly. It suggested that failure was imminent even before it had a chance to appear.
Looking back now, I see how easily motion disguised itself as identity, and I still struggle with the wiring my childhood brain formed. Each step forward in my brain’s synapses reinforced the belief that progress defined worth, that effort justified existence, and that movement protected against the uncertainty that lingered beneath the stillness. The childhood habits, built on fear, anger, sadness, and depression, formed quietly without notice. One day followed another. One task followed another. One tear followed another. What started as survival slowly became a rhythm as organized and structured as Jack LaLanne’s exercises. That rhythm turned into expectation. I didn’t question any of it because it worked and, to me, that was all that mattered. Movement produced results. Results built confidence. Confidence led to more movement. Together, all of this gradually changed my life.
By the time I reached fourth grade, I had become someone who kept moving forward even when no one was watching. I did it not because I was told to, not because I was beaten into submission or abused to make a point, and not because I was forced to, but because my father told me several times that I disgusted him because it seemed I was trying to “outgrow my raising.” I fell in love with moving forward because it felt like the natural state of being alive and, moreover, about staying alive. Once movement becomes identity, stillness then has no choice but to start to feel like loss.
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 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/.
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/.
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/.
WORKING WITHOUT AN ECHO
In the quiet that follows when affirmation disappears, work takes on a different weight. This reflective essay explores what happens when creative effort continues without feedback, applause, or visible response—and how meaning, purpose, and identity can deepen when the work no longer asks to be witnessed in order to matter.
By Clay Stafford
There are stretches when work and life carry on, yet the world goes strangely muffled, and I’m left facing a reflection I don’t repetitively acknowledge. The first time I became aware of this was after years of working in the collaborative arts of television, film, and theater, when, without those lively moments, without the noise, silence itself became its own uncanny yet welcoming mirror. To this day, the likeness I see unnerves me.
The experience I’m thinking of wasn’t dramatic. Nothing collapsed. Nothing extraordinary happened. I changed where I wrote. I was living in Los Angeles then, surrounded by the hum of other people’s stories. That was all. I was young. I switched employment and went from the noise of collaborative rooms to the hush of a rented space on my own. Nothing refashioned in my profession except the location and the environment. I kept doing what I promised, tending the responsibilities I chose, still delivering work, but without the usual affirmations. Where daily life had once been bustling, there were now no replies in hallways, no nods in breakrooms, no signs in studios that anything I was offering was reaching beyond my own effort. In the absence of feedback, I learned that the material I was writing and the life I was living were now without endorsement, and the meaning of things changed when nothing echoed back.
Without response, the work felt different beneath my hands. I still had the discipline to continue, but without reflection or resonance, I began to feel the dull ache of questions rising from somewhere older than ambition, closer to the ribcage: What is this for? Does any of this matter? Had I mistaken movement or activity for direction? It surprised me how much the small, ordinary reassurances had once steadied me. A single thank-you, a simple hurrah, being noticed in passing, none of it had seemed important at the time, but when it disappeared, I felt the floor shift a little. I realized how soundlessly I had leaned upon them.
What steadied me again wasn’t a surge of motivation or a sudden breakthrough. It was a kind of returning, almost like walking back to the trailhead after getting lost. I noticed that the reasons I began hadn’t dissolved just because no one was nodding along. The values underneath the effort remained, unchanged and unmoved. The silence hadn’t drained them of meaning; it had only stripped away the applause I didn’t know I’d been listening for.
Working without affirmation brought me face to face with a question I hadn’t needed to ask before: did the work matter only when it was witnessed, or did it matter even here, in secret, when there was no audience to gather the story? It was an uncomfortable distinction. There was no performance in that space, no cleverness, just me and the truth of what I cared about.
Staying with the work in that lonely townhouse on Bedford Drive, where jacaranda petals stuck to the windshield, wasn’t about mettle. It wasn’t about proving anything, not even to myself. It felt smaller than that, more silent. I continued because continuing felt more honest than stopping. The pull didn’t come from momentum or reward; it came from alignment, as if turning away would have been a small betrayal of something I couldn’t name.
In that hush, something shifted. It wasn’t confidence or inspiration. It was a steadier posture, days spent without waiting for an echo, returning without asking to be met halfway. There was nothing heroic or cinematic about it. I certainly didn’t feel that. I simply stayed.
Affirmation did come back eventually, and the validity of the choice I had made did come, though in indirect ways I couldn’t have predicted. By then, the ground beneath the work had already changed. It no longer asked to be seen to matter. The meaning of what I did through my work had moved inward, even to a place where applause, even though it later came, couldn’t reach it.
I once believed that meaning required an audience. Now I suspect that the audience only revealed what was true long before anyone clapped. When the echo disappeared, and I kept going anyway, the work stopped asking who was watching and started quietly telling me who I was. It was from there that I became.
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/.
Between Pen and Paper: Flaneuring Through a Writer’s Mind – Writing at the Speed of a Melting Popsicle
Stream-of-consciousness writing captures thoughts in their raw, unfiltered form. In this essay, Andi Kopek reflects on memory, history, morality, and creativity—beginning with something as simple as a melting popsicle.
By Andi Kopek
A popsicle.
A little girl is holding a popsicle in her hand. The color is red.
It’s so hot—so steaming hot—that the popsicle is dripping on her fingers, but she doesn’t mind. She doesn’t even notice it. She licks it innocently. The popsicle drips through one finger, then the next, down her little pinky, onto her clothes, and finally, the ground. She doesn’t mind.
Why are popsicles called popsicles? Pop-sicle. From icicle? But why POP-sicle? Why not sun- sicle? Or sweet-sickle? Or slash-sickle?
When I was a little boy, I didn’t eat popsicles. Maybe ice cream on a stick—but I didn’t like them. They dripped too quickly. Dripping again. It was unpleasant. Nasty. I don’t like mess.
When I was a child I liked eating brine cucumbers instead—from a big barrel with herbs. From a local store with vegetables. Zielona Budka it was called. The Green Hut. I forgot the name of the herb. The name of the herb. The herb. But the smell was so distinct. Summers weren’t this hot or humid then. Definitely not this humid. They were bearable.
But I couldn’t step into the stream that flowed near our house. A sign nailed to a small pine tree said “Do Not Enter.” There was always this thin black line on the banks—pollution. So strange, isn’t it? That rivers are polluted? Dill. It was dill.
Same with the Baltic Sea. You’d walk along the shore and see a thin line of oil—leaking from tankers, maybe. How much oil needs to spill to leave a line like that? Shorelines stretch endlessly. So it must be a massive amount. And yet it’s just… normal. There was no way to talk about it. No one raised it as a question. No one wanted to listen.
It seemed hopeless to raise this issue. Hopelessness was everywhere. And it’s what made me move. Made me search for something else—some place where hope exists.
Because a hopeless man can’t make a difference. That’s unbearable. And passion? You couldn’t express passion. If you had feelings, you had to bury them. And you’d be dead. Had no feelings? How can you live without feelings? Also dead. Either way—passion or apathy—you were dead. So I looked for a place where you might feel alive. Really alive. And I moved.
And when I found it—disappointment. Because people are the same. Buildings are, pretty much, the same. At least similar. Some things differ, but at the core, no real changes. It was rather surprising. And disappointing.
No matter where you live, this side of the pond, or the other, this continent or that—people behave the same. Systems differ, sure. Maybe there’s more of one thing here, less of another there. But manipulation is the same. The desire to control others, the masses? The same.
Maybe there once were tribes, cultures, societies driven by different values. Not just different beliefs—different internal forces. Not focused on profit, progress, goals. But they’re gone.
Crushed. At least, they’re no longer the dominant force.
Put a peaceful person in a room with someone okay with killing… Guess who survives? The second one doesn’t blink and pulls the trigger. No hesitation. And no guilt afterward. No guilt afterward is terrifying. Can give me nightmares. That’s how people with high morality die.
That’s how reflective people disappear. That’s how good people don’t survive. Because the ones willing to negotiate, to coexist, to cooperate… by definition, they are always at a disadvantage. The ones who don’t care about destroying them? They win.
That’s how the world is skewed. And that balance? It will never be restored. Never existed. The imbalance repeats itself. One generation to the next. Until the skew becomes so extreme that people go mad and destroy each other. And justify it, of course. And then the remaining few start the cycle again.
That’s the story of human life on this planet. It’s so short. And so cyclic. We pride ourselves on our “progress.” We love talking about how our societies have “evolved.” But if you study history carefully, you’ll see, nothing is new.
We just forgot. We forget. We forget. We forget and repeat. Amnesia is built into the system. Everything from the past returns—distorted. A ghost, shifting form, always changing. We think we know it. But we don’t. We think we learn from history. But we don’t. And even if we do—it means nothing. We can’t or don’t want to act on it. Well, the ones who want, usually don’t have enough power. And if they make a change, it is rather short lived. Because of the nature of man.
So how do you enjoy life, knowing this? Knowing that we don’t learn? Knowing that goodness is always at a disadvantage? How do you live like that?
Maybe…
Maybe we just start with a popsicle. On a hot, humid, sunny August day.
At a brewery where kids run around and play…
Author’s Note
This piece was created using a stream-of-consciousness technique, beginning with a real observation of a child holding a melting popsicle at a local brewery during this summer’s extreme heat. Because my writing speed lags substantially behind the pace of my thoughts, I decided to record them instead—capturing this internal monologue as it unfolded. It was recorded on an iPhone 13Pro Max using the Voice Memos app, transcribed via Otter.ai, and lightly edited for readability.
As both a neuroscientist and writer, I’m fascinated by stream-of-consciousness as a way of capturing thought in its raw, unfiltered form—before logic and language shape it. Writers like Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Clarice Lispector explored this terrain, but the tone and emotional cadence of this piece are perhaps closest to the style of Thomas Bernhard. The process felt amazing, like creating in a fascinating, improvisational way, as if the thoughts were composing themselves in real time.
Final thought: One of my previous columns explored writer’s block. The stream-of- consciousness approach can be a powerful antidote for the block, allowing creativity to freeflow.
Andi Kopek is a multidisciplinary artist based in Nashville, TN. With a background in medicine, molecular neuroscience, and behavioral change, he has recently devoted himself entirely to the creative arts. His debut poetry collection, Shmehara, has garnered accolades in both literary and independent film circles for its innovative storytelling.
When you’re in Nashville, you can join Andi at his monthly poetry workshop, participate in the Libri Prohibiti book club (both held monthly at the Spine bookstore, Smyrna, TN), or catch one of his live performances. When not engaging with the community, he's hard at work on his next creative project or preparing for his monthly art-focused podcast, The Samovar(t) Lounge: Steeping Conversations with Creative Minds, where in a relaxed space, invited artists share tea and the never-told intricacies of their creative journeys.
Setting Goals
Goal-setting is a crucial part of a writer’s journey—one that ensures progress, focus, and alignment with purpose. This article shares key strategies for writers to set goals that reflect their values, keep them accountable, and help them thrive both creatively and professionally.
As a new year unfolds, many of us may sense the need to set objectives for our writing, regardless of whether we’re novices or experienced. There’s also a business aspect to our writing careers, which requires us to focus on how we present ourselves. To achieve this, we may need to polish our editing skills, improve our social media presence, attend conferences to network, and stay updated on the latest market trends.
We can inspire and uplift our readers through writing, providing them hope, guidance, and encouragement. However, doing this requires more than talent and passion. We need a clear understanding of where we’re going and a well-defined plan. This includes identifying our target audience, developing a marketable brand, building a platform, and engaging with our readers through various channels. We should be willing to continually grow and improve our craft, seeking feedback and guidance and staying current with the latest trends and techniques in the industry. With dedication and perseverance, we can achieve great success as writers and positively impact our readers.
Setting goals is a crucial aspect of our journey as authors. It helps us to stay focused and keeps us motivated and accountable for our progress. By aligning our objectives with our values, we can ensure our efforts are directed toward what matters. To help us, here are tips to keep in mind while creating goals that are in line with our values:
Seek guidance: Starting with a strong foundation is essential. Whether seeking clarity on a specific goal or looking for general direction in life, mentors can be a powerful tool for gaining insight and inspiration. Before starting anything new, it’s wise to seek guidance from those with more experience and ask for help from them to lead us forward.
Establish a clear vision: Clearly define what we want to achieve. Once we comprehensively understand our end goal, we should write specific things we want to achieve. This should be measurable and achievable to track our progress and stay motivated. Setting clear and attainable objectives usually increases the chances of success and allows us to prioritize our focus.
Align goals with our values: It’s vital to ensure our objectives align with our beliefs to share our message with the world effectively. This means that before embarking on any writing project, we should take the time to reflect on our values and beliefs and ensure our aspirations are aligned. This way, we can create content that resonates with our audience and positively impacts the world. Ultimately, our writing should be guided by our desire to make a difference in the lives of those who read our work.
Break down goals into smaller steps: When we create aspirations for ourselves, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the task. However, we can make them more achievable by breaking them down into smaller, more manageable steps. We must create a detailed plan outlining specific actions to move closer to our aim. By breaking things down this way, we can feel more in control of our progress and motivated to keep going, even when faced with challenges.
Hold ourselves accountable: To take responsibility for achieving our goals, we set objectives and hold ourselves accountable to them. Another key tactic is to schedule regular check-ins with ourselves and those we trust to evaluate our progress and determine whether we are on track to reaching our desired outcomes. Through this action, we can identify areas we may need to adjust our approach or put in extra effort to stay on target.
Celebrate our success: Celebrating small achievements along the way helps to reinforce positive behavior and maintain our motivation to continue working toward our targets. We can learn from our failures by reflecting on what went wrong and using this information to improve our strategies. Adopting a growth mindset and viewing failures as opportunities for growth can turn setbacks into stepping stones toward success.
As writers, we can accomplish unprecedented success and leave an indelible mark on the world through our words. By setting goals, channeling our creative potential into our literary endeavors, and dedicating ourselves wholeheartedly to our craft, we can make meaningful contributions to society. Let’s relentlessly strive with unwavering passion and dedication to create works that inspire, motivate, and transform lives. Let’s unleash our full potential and reach the pinnacle of our literary journeys, leaving a legacy that’ll inspire future generations.
Author, speaker, educational consultant, and editor–Katherine Hutchinson-Hayes, Ed. D., has had her hand in leadership for many years. She loves speaking to groups, delivering messages with quick wit and real-life stories. Katherine is a freelance writer/content editor, a content editor/writing coach for Iron Stream Media and a sensitivity reader for Sensitivity Between the Lines. She is a review board member and contributor to Inkspirations (an online magazine for Christian writers) and her writing has been published in Guideposts. Her work in art/writing is distinguished by awards including the New York Mayor’s Contribution to the Arts, Outstanding Resident Artist of Arizona, and the Foundations Awards at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writer’s Conference (2016, 2019, 2021). She is a member of Word Weavers International and serves as an online chapter president and mentor. She belongs to FWA (Florida Writers Association), ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers), CWoC (Crime Writers of Color), AWSA (Advanced Writers and Speakers Association), and AASA (American Association of School Administrators). She serves on the board for the nonprofit organization Submersion 14 and is an art instructor for the nonprofit organization Light for the Future. Katherine is the host of the podcast Murder, Mystery & Mayhem Laced with Morality. She has authored a Christian Bible study for women and is currently working on the sequel and prequel to her first general market thriller novel, “A Fifth of the Story.”
Staying Motivated in a Writing Career
Writing success rarely happens overnight—it’s a long game. Discover practical strategies and mindset shifts to stay motivated through the ups and downs of your writing journey.
“People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don’t know when to quit. Most people succeed because they are determined to. Persevere and get it done.”
—George Allen
Staying Motivated
Think of it this way: Failure is a single event, while success is a process.
You should realize (if you hadn’t before) that the road to success is a long, constant journey, not a short sprint to a nearby finish line. Many writers quit before achieving success, including some who were close and would have made it with just a bit more effort. You never know how close you are, where the tipping point will be. In the past couple of years, two of my favorite writers suddenly broke into top-level, best-seller, well-deserved, breakout success after many years of toiling in the trenches. It seemed to happen overnight, and yet they’d been working diligently for years to make it happen and had a number of excellent books out.
Why are you writing? To make money, win awards, get famous? Those are external goals, out of your control. What you can control is your production, your author brand, and how hard you’re willing to work. If you’re not having fun, and it’s taking a toll on your life, it may not be the thing you think you wanted. But if you have that need to write, to get your stories out to the world, you’ll keep going.
How does one persist when success seems unobtainable? One book I highly recommend is Motivate Your Writing!: Using Motivational Psychology to Energize Your Writing Life, by Stephen Kelner. He’s also married to a writer, so he knows his stuff.
Before my first novel was published, I was chomping at the bit to get it out. Publication seemed just out of reach for several years, and I had to prod myself to keep going. One Christmas I printed out the book draft, put the pages in a binder, wrapped it, and gave it to myself as a Christmas gift. Though my family thought it strange, it was terrific motivation and gave me a boost to continue thinking about the day when I would hold a real print copy of my first novel. That day came, and many more of amazing success. One Christmas, I had three unfinished novels, another I wanted to write, and hadn’t published enough work in too long a while. So, I printed title covers, attached them to other books, wrapped them, and gave them to myself as more gifts, as a promise and a commitment that I’d get to work and finish and publish them.
I’m motivated by the stories of amazing writers (and other artists, musicians, entertainers, and creative people) of talent who had a much tougher time of it, who struggled to get published and make a living in years past. Now we can get published whenever we want, but the hard part is getting sold and read. Inspirational quotes and success stories help keep me going. I look outside writing, to success and motivation gurus, to see if I can use techniques for success from other walks of life. By keeping a positive attitude, you can push through the dark days. The habit of success keeps you on track when you encounter setbacks. Do not allow events to stop you. Learn the power of the word NO when asked for things that will suck up your time if they prevent you from finishing projects.
Chart Your Success
Because our minds gloss over the day-to-day, the usual and familiar, it’s quite useful to keep a writing log for recording what steps you take and see how much you do over time. Writing a book may seem like it goes on forever, so keep logs of what you do, to keep on track and motivated.
This can be as simple as making a time and word count entry in a notebook, or in a spreadsheet or document on a computer. You want to build momentum, so that a string of days of writing encourages you to do more. Each day that you’ve put new words down is a success! It’s great to look at the accumulated results after a few months of work, and it truly feels like accomplishment.
You should also keep track of other parts of writing activities and successes. Publications, new editions, acceptances, good reviews, big sales, milestones reached, all that and more come together into a success chart. Record what advances you’ve made, and they will mount up into a tidal wave. You want to look back and see that you’ve made progress. Little steps in the right direction for big results.
Dale T. Phillips has published novels, story collections, non-fiction, and over 80 short stories. Stephen King was Dale's college writing teacher, and since then, Dale has found time to appear on stage, television, radio, in an independent feature film, and compete on Jeopardy (losing in a spectacular fashion). He's a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the Sisters in Crime. He's traveled to all 50 states, Mexico, Canada, and through Europe.
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