KN Magazine: Articles
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/.
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/.
Freedom Fighters: Harness the Power of Motivation and Discipline to Beat Procrastination
All writers face the inner enemy of procrastination. In this insightful and empowering guide, Mary Lynn Cloghesy and Jason Schembri explore how motivation and discipline can work together to help writers conquer resistance, build better habits, and stay on track toward their goals.
By Mary Lynn Cloghesy and Jason Schembri
One common foe all writers face, regardless of genre, is procrastination. It’s inevitable for anyone in a deadline-driven profession. Whether you are writing for yourself or a publisher, you are bound to run into this anti-hero in the dark corners of your mind, who will try to lead you down pathways that go nowhere, then abandon you at the end. If you make the long journey back to where you started, it will be waiting for you, tapping its foot, wondering what will work this time… that article you plan to write, why bother… the chapter you want to finish, no one will read it… these deadlines, all irrelevant... Even Charles Dickens has something to say on the matter: “Never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.”
“Procrastination” is derived from the Latin verb procrastinare—to put off until tomorrow—but it’s more complex than a simple delay. It’s a state of mind. Coleridge used the term, a “tomorrower,” in 1810 for someone caught in the grips of procrastination. Certain studies suggest it’s a strategy to manage negative emotions like self-doubt that cause you to avoid what is beneficial; others define it as intention alone without any follow-through. Regardless, it can become a self-destructive cycle. As writers, we are especially susceptible to procrastination because our rewards don’t come immediately. It can be years before any hard work pays off, particularly if you are seeking recognition by the industry, which makes this enemy even more powerful.
Add to that our propensity to judge ourselves harshly, and we can back ourselves into a corner. As Megan McArdle explains in an article in The Atlantic, “Most writers manage to get by because, as the deadline creeps closer, their fears of turning in nothing eventually surpasses their fears of turning in something terrible.” Can we do better than that? Only if we are intentional in our approach, as research has revealed that nearly 80% of our thoughts are negative and 95% are repeated on an endless loop, both of which keep us moving through a labyrinth of excuses and missed opportunities. William James, father of American psychology, has famously said, “a great many people think they are thinking, when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
So, how do we combat this formidable opponent? We need a team of superheroes: Motivation and Discipline. Mirriam-Webster defines motivation as “a stimulus, force, or influence,” using the word “incentive” and “drive” as comparatives, whereas discipline is described as “control gained by enforcing obedience or order,” then sadly adds “punishment” as a synonym. At first glace, the words “motivation” and “discipline” seem to be opposite in nature, so we need to unpack these terms to understand how they can beat procrastination.
At the beginning of a project when your ideas are flowing and any deadlines are in the distant future, your motivation is typically high. You want to do your chosen task, putting pen to paper (metaphorically.) Yet, procrastination is hiding in the background, silent and invisible, lying in wait. Motivation will be the first thing to come under attack, as it’s prone to the vagaries of your mood, emotions, and external influences. Enter discipline, who you might think of as the “big brother” of motivation. Discipline can help you get back on track, although its influence may be fleeting, if you resist it because you feel chastised. Clearly, these two need to work together to win the day.
Strategies to Keep You Motivated
Because motivation is higher in the early stages of writing, we’ll address it first. By training this superhero, you’ll learn to sustain your efforts, until it’s time for discipline to step in to help you accomplish your goals. Here are some tools and strategies to consider:
Use “The Five Second Rule,” by self-help author, Mel Robbins.
The premise is that when you have an idea, your brain will KILL the impulse in five seconds unless you act upon it. To apply this concept, count down from five to one, then follow-through on an action that implements or supports the idea immediately. For writers, this may mean free-writing for a few minutes to “prime the pump,” when the countdown ends, or firing up the work-in-progress that you’ve been avoiding.Ask yourself: what do you want NOW versus MOST. When you feel distracted or lose interest in your long-term goal, such as finishing a novel, it can be easy for short term “wants” to take precedence over delayed desires. This is where you need to step back and ask yourself, “what do I want NOW, and what do I want MOST?” If they happen to align, that’s great, but if not, use this question to determine what matters to you most. Alignment can and will happen more often, the more you implement this strategy.
Commit to a Mirror Moment. What is a mirror moment, you might be wondering…it’s a strategy to bring to light the fears and resistance you experience in the dark recesses of your mind. If most of our thoughts are unproductive, taking up space that could be used for creative work, then we need to call them out. More importantly, we need to recognize the internal dialogue that is disabling us by asking ourselves if what that inner voice says is true, especially when procrastination is speaking. To implement this strategy, stand in front of a mirror, and say OUT LOUD what you’re thinking. Next, ask yourself if it’s true (spoiler alert: procrastination always lies). Finally, smile and tell it to STAND DOWN. This is the transitional step where discipline can begin to take hold. It’s more powerful than you realize, although it can feel a little uncomfortable the first few times you try it.
How to Build Discipline (Without Punishment)
When considering the notion of discipline, it’s crucial to separate it from punishment. The first is positive and productive, whereas the second is painful and punitive. We can only harness the power of discipline when we embrace habit-building, which is a proactive approach to achieving our goals versus a reactive response to missing our objectives. Writers are hard enough on themselves, right? Our contributions to the craft and canon of writing can, and should, begin with diligent self-care and kindness for ourselves and others. Having clarified that point, let’s consider some strategies to build discipline:
Make Some Space: Sometimes, you’ll experience a legitimate lack of time in your day for writing, but you can do something about that. Try an exercise called Start/Stop/Continue. Find one thing you want to start, preferably writing, then find something that is occupying time that is not beneficial to your forward progression and commit to stop doing it. Anything within your current routine that serves you well can be acknowledged and retained. In this way, you won’t continually add more work to your schedule as you’ll substitute one thing (writing, reading, research time) and stop another. Overburdening yourself creates overwhelm, which fuels procrastination.
“Piggyback” New Habits on Existing Ones: It can feel difficult to build a habit in isolation, so it may help to “piggyback” a new habit on top of an existing one that you already enjoy. For example, we both enjoy our morning coffee, so we decided to “piggyback” our first writing session with that habit. As soon as our cups are filled, we each sit at our desks and fire up our works-in-progress. Now, that these habits are successfully paired, it feels strange not to follow-through. The beauty of piggybacking is that it accelerates the adherence to a new habit, while also creating time efficiency.
Healthy Living Top Tip
Our healthy living top tip this month is to build consistency through repetition. “Persistence in resistance” beats procrastination, every time. It helps to think of writing as a practice, one that requires regular attention, even for short intervals. Protective discipline can’t be built on a one-time effort, but when you string your efforts together on daily basis, for many days in succession, a new habit is formed, and discipline becomes the perfect partner to motivation. Together, they are a dynamic duo that will help you cross the finish line of any writing project.
Freedom Fighters Working for You
Procrastination is one of our biggest enemies, and it is ever-present. If we want to succeed in our writing, we need to be deliberate in our strategy and use strong tools to overcome it. Thankfully, we have the freedom fighters of motivation and discipline by our side. Reviewing our goals on a regular basis will enhance our probability of success too, so procrastination doesn’t take us by surprise. While some effort is involved in building and tracking new habits, consider what science fiction writer Douglas Adams says about the rewards, “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they made as they go by.” Now, start counting down, 5-4-3-2… and head straight to the mirror for a heart-to-heart with yourself about your writing, acknowledging how much it matters.
Mary Lynn formerly co-owned a therapeutic clinic, and Jason is a long-term weight loss and healthy living coach. Together, they host a writing and hiking retreat in the Canadian Rockies.
Overcoming Blinking Cursor Syndrome
USA Today bestselling author Lois Winston explores the reality of writer’s block—aka Blinking Cursor Syndrome—and offers practical, experience-backed advice to overcome it. From news-inspired story prompts to the fine art of eavesdropping and setting boundaries, this article delivers insightful tips to reignite your creativity and get your writing flowing again.
By Lois Winston
I’ve heard some people state that there’s no such thing as writer’s block, that it’s all in your head, and you just need to snap out of it. Place your butt in your chair, your fingers on the keyboard, and just start typing!
I beg to differ. If something is keeping the words from flowing, it doesn’t matter if that something is physical, emotional, or mental. It exists. Anyone who claims otherwise has either been lucky enough not to experience writer’s block yet or is lying—to herself and/or to others. When life happens, it often impedes the muse, and every author at some point will find herself staring at a blinking cursor.
However, there are ways to overcome Blinking Cursor Syndrome, and they don’t involve purchasing additional software or downloading another social media app. My writing mantra has always been “Truth is Stranger than Fiction.” Many plots and characters in my books have been influenced by what’s going on in the world and how those events impact ordinary people.
The next time you find yourself suffering from Blinking Cursor Syndrome, try one or more of these tips:
Watch and read the news.
Too many people I know don’t regularly read, watch, or listen to the news. Big mistake, especially for writers. On any given night, a half-hour of world or local news will provide massive fodder for plots and characters.
From the time I began writing thirty years ago, I’ve kept a binder of interesting articles I’ve come across, clipping them from newspapers and news magazines or downloading them from the internet. Whenever I’m stuck for an idea, I pull out that binder and read through some of the articles in search of a nugget of inspiration. Even though I write mysteries, not all these articles are about criminal activity. My binder includes human interest stories, editorials, letters to Dear Abby, and even ads for odd mail-order products. Something will inevitably get my creative juices flowing.
Employ the fine art of eavesdropping.
I’m also a diehard eavesdropper. Instead of burying my nose in my phone, whether I’m standing on a supermarket line, in the theater awaiting the start of a movie, in a doctor’s waiting room, or even in a stall in the ladies’ room, I’m listen to conversations going on around me, especially phone conversations, which amazingly, are often on speaker in very public places. If I hear anything interesting (and I usually do), I’ll jot down some notes when I get into my car.
Be observant.
Stick your phone in your pocket and focus on the people you encounter as you go about your day. What are they doing? How do they react to and interact with others? Are they unique in the way they dress or look? Do they have any quirks? You won’t always come across someone worth remembering, but often, you will. Again, make notes for future reference.
In A Stitch to Die For, the fifth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, a murder occurs in the home across the street from Anastasia. Over the course of the series, the house is demolished and a McMansion built in its place. When I was mulling over ideas for the plot of Seams Like the Perfect Crime, the recently released fourteenth book in the series, I knew it was time for new neighbors to move into the McMansion. But who should they be?
I’ve had some very strange neighbors throughout my life, but the strangest were a couple who lived across the street from us twenty-five years ago. However, even though truth is often stranger than fiction, and my humorous cozy mystery series is populated with quite a few quirky characters, including my sleuth’s communist mother-in-law and a Shakespeare-quoting parrot, I wondered if readers would buy into a fictional version of my former neighbors.
Barefoot and shirtless, the husband would spend hours mowing his dirt-packed, weed-infested front lawn. Except for rain or snow, every day throughout the year, he’d run the mower back and forth across the same postage stamp-sized patch until the mower ran out of gas. He’d then sit on the top step of his porch and guzzle beer until he either passed out or fell asleep, lying on his back with his massive beer belly protruding skyward.
His wife was odd in her own way. One day, I witnessed a sidewalk brawl between her and a woman she accused of having an affair with her weed-mowing, beer-guzzling husband.
To get a feel for how readers would react to characters based on this couple, I told my newsletter subscribers about them and asked if I should use them as inspiration for characters in my next book. The overwhelming consensus of those who responded was to go for it. I did, and I’m thrilled to report that so far, reviews are quite positive.
Along with the above three tips I’ve used to help me deal with Blinking Cursor Syndrome, here are a few others I find helpful:
Join a critique group or find a critique partner.
It always helps to have another writer or writers with whom to brainstorm and bounce around ideas. Let’s face it, sometimes we’re just too invested in our work to be objective. A good critique partner will bring a fresh set of eyes to your work and help you find a way out of that corner you’ve written yourself into.
Clear your overactive imagination.
Sometimes our brains are so full of fragments of ideas that we find it difficult to narrow down the possibilities. If we choose A, will we regret not choosing B? What about C? Or D? When that happens, our imagination can work against us, paralyzing us with the fear of making the wrong choice. Try meditating. Or take a walk in the woods. Or a long, hot shower or bath. Wake up half an hour early to focus on one character or one plot point, ignoring everything else. Your brain is like your desk. If it’s too cluttered, you’ll never find what you need.
Give yourself permission not to write.
Some authors feel that the moment they finish a book, they need to start the next one. However, humans aren’t perpetual motion machines. If we want to nurture our creativity, we need to care for our bodies and minds, allowing them to rejuvenate periodically. Too often, we sabotage ourselves by believing we can never stop working. This is counterproductive, inevitably stifling our creativity.
When you begin to feel yourself succumbing to this way of thinking, walk away from the keyboard and screen. Take the day off. Or several days. Read a book for pleasure. Spend time on a hobby you’ve ignored for too long. Work in your garden. Do some volunteer work. Go shopping or out to lunch with friends. Take a short vacation or a staycation. Most importantly, step out of your writer’s cave. Give your brain and body a much-needed break. That blinking cursor is telling you that you need one.
Learn to say no.
Forgive me if this comes across as sounding sexist, but in my experience, this is a problem that affects women more than men. We have a hard time saying no, no matter what’s asked of us or by whom. Is it insecurity? A need to please? Or because we’ve been conditioned to believe we’re capable of accomplishing anything? After all, I am woman. Hear me roar! No matter the reason, from my own experiences and those of many of my friends, this inability to say no results in juggling too much, which creates an overabundance of stress and leaves less time for writing. Then, when we do find time to write, we pressure ourselves to get that self-imposed daily word count down, which creates even more stress. And thanks to all that stress, the words refuse to come.
The solution is as simple as not being so accommodating. Most people will always zero in on the one person they know they can wheedle, cajole, sweet-talk, or arm-twist into heading this committee or taking on that project, especially since most of these people believe, as writers, we don’t have “real” jobs (Which is a topic for another article). Resolve to grow a backbone, put your foot down, and say no now and then. You’ll find that when you free up writing time, your cursor will no longer blink you into a hypnotic trance.
Set a challenge for yourself.
Step away from trying to figure out whatever plot or character issue is causing Blinking Cursor Syndrome. Instead, find a recent news or human-interest story. Then, open a fresh document on your laptop or grab a pad and pen.
After reading the article, allow yourself three to five minutes to put a “what if” spin to the article by answering each of the following questions:
1. Who is the protagonist?
2. Who is the antagonist?
3. Who are the secondary characters?
4. Where does the story take place?
5. What are the characters’ goals?
6. What are the characters’ motivations?
7. What are the characters’ conflicts?
8.What’s the basic plot?
9. What are the three major turning points of the plot?
10. What’s the black moment?
11. What’s the resolution?
When you’ve finished, study your answers. Chances are, your brain has subconsciously focused on the problem you put aside, and somewhere within the answers to those questions, is the solution to your blinking cursor. If not, you’ve got a head start on a new book. And that’s never a bad thing!
USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. A Crafty Collage of Crime, the twelfth book in her series, was the recipient of the 2024 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for Best Comedy. Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com. Sign up for her newsletter to receive an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery.
Using a 500-Word Diet to Complete Your First Draft
Struggling to finish your first draft? Try the 500-Word Diet—a daily writing habit that’s realistic, flexible, and surprisingly effective. Learn how to treat your writing like self-care and finally reach the end of that manuscript.
By Terri Bowen
There are a lot of fun aspects to being a writer: creating imaginary worlds, bringing fascinating characters to life, feeling like a rockstar when someone says they dig your work, and conducting weird research that would look downright creepy under normal circumstances, to name a few. On the other end of that are the not-so-fun parts: writer’s block, wrestling with self-doubt, carving out time to write, or discovering a major plot hole halfway through. Still, if you’re anything like me, you’ve been daydreaming about seeing your book in print since you were a kid. With the gusto of a caffeinated jackrabbit, you decide it’s time to crank out that first novel. You’ve done all the meticulous outlining of a plotter, complete with storyboards and music playlists. Or maybe you’re a rebel, a pantser, prepared to fly by the seat of your, well, pants, occasionally utilizing barely legible notes scribbled on grocery receipts. Either way, you’re ready to dive in. Splash!
Things go along swimmingly at first. Then one day, your regular job gets a little too hectic, leaving you too tired to write. The next day, you have too many errands to run, leaving you with no time to crank out a few pages. Another day, you’ve managed to catch the latest bug circulating in your house, and you can barely breathe through one nostril, let alone work on your book. And so on. Suddenly, two weeks have gone by, and your characters are left feeling abandoned while you berate your lack of discipline and time management. When you finally pick back up where you left off, your momentum is gone, and everything you write sounds more mind numbing than tax return instructions. Then you end up marinating in a vat of imposter syndrome while glumly scrolling through social media to watch the latest viral cat videos.
Sound familiar? If so, you’re probably beyond frustrated and wondering how to get back on track. (And if not, then carry on, you shining star!) I’ve had a lot of writing ups and downs in my day, and the biggest reason for the latter is this: life happens. As Scottish poet Robert Burns once said, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” And since I can function—more or less—without writing, my goal of authoring a book amidst the chaos ends up at the bottom of my to-do list. It starts to feel like a distant, arduous task at best, and a frivolous, ridiculous pipedream at worst.
As I pondered this predicament a few months ago, I wondered, what if I treat writing as a necessity, as something I require in my life to be the best, most authentic version of me? What realistic, sustainable steps could I take to make that a reality? Would a drastic change in my perspective set things back in motion and keep them there? Bearing in mind my desire to finish my first draft by December 31st, I did the math to see how much I need to write daily to achieve that goal. This led to the creation of the 500-Word Diet. Allow me to explain.
As I recently wrote in an Instagram post, I’m now treating my writing journey like a health regimen. For me, 500 literary calories a day will keep me on a solid path to a finished draft by year’s end. It has become a reasonable daily word count that feels manageable and satisfactory. Instead of adhering to a specific amount of time, I’ve found that I can crank out 500 words even on my busiest, most exhausting days. It frequently ends up being more than that, but even when it’s the minimum, I feel good about my progress.
Like any dietary wellness plan worth its salt, there needs to be some flexibility, cheat days included. If I know I have a day coming up when it will be nearly impossible to accomplish my minimum daily word count, I make a point to cover it in the days beforehand. If I truly need a break, I take one knowing that I need to double my word count the next day. So far, the most I’ve accumulated is 1500 words due to missing two days. In those scenarios, I reminded myself how discouraged and depleted I would feel if I let it snowball any further. To keep myself happy and mentally nourished, I fed my brain—er, worked on my book—and caught back up. And if I’m feeling stuck, I throw in a placeholder note and push forward like I’m plowing my way through a plate of kale. I might not enjoy that particular “meal,” but I know it’s good for me, and I’m not sabotaging my regimen. Put in the work, get it down, and edit later.
I’m happy to say that this approach has truly changed things for me, not just in terms of productivity, but also my mindset. Each word-count milestone I meet gives me a boost of confidence. I’m doing what I’ve always dreamed of, and it feels pretty good.
I should also acknowledge that writing a first draft in bite-size pieces isn't particularly new or revolutionary. However, adjusting your perspective and categorizing your writing project as a need—especially if you have a full-time day job, are a parent, or have regular obligations that take up large portions of your schedule—gives you permission to make writing a priority, instead of something to be continuously shuffled until it gets lost in a creative black hole. We have all heard the importance of self-care, and how it enables us to be our best selves, and it's important to remember that dreams and goals are part of that self-care.
Now go tackle that first draft with the attention it deserves—even if it's 500 words at a time.
Terri Bowen is a writer in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has authored countless poems, short stories, essays, press releases, human interest & financial articles, personal blogs, and screenplays and has nearly completed the first draft of her first novel, a suspense thriller. She is chronicling her writing journey on Instagram (@terribowenauthor).
The Art of Writing Fast (Part I)
Writing fast isn’t magic—it’s mindset. In this first part of her new series, Chrissy Hicks dismantles the myth of a secret formula and explores why fast writing can fuel creativity, increase productivity, and defeat the dreaded blank page.
The idea of writing FAST excites me, because it’s something I always wanted to do but believed there was some code I needed to crack before I could achieve results. I’m here to tell you that’s not true. There’s no code, no secret, no one-size-fits-all formula. Nope. And you get all the details here, in my new mini-series, for free.
Introduction
Writing fast isn’t for everyone, and it’s not always feasible. Note: I didn’t say it was impossible, nor am I saying some people can or can’t. What I am saying is not everyone will enjoy this method, and even for those who do, it may not work 100% of the time.
I think anyone can complete a novel, and I believe anyone can complete a novel fast, if they set their mind to it. NaNoWriMo is a fantastic challenge to start with, if you’ve never tried. And if you enjoy writing and haven’t heard of National Novel Writing Month, then I have to ask, where have you been?? Just kidding. The challenge involves writing 50,000 words in one month (particularly November, but you can pick any month to challenge yourself). The idea is to get words on paper, stop procrastinating, and finish the dang book.
Keep in mind: this does NOT mean you’ll have a polished, publication-ready manuscript by the end of your speedy writing adventures. But what you will have, is something to work with. As Jodi Picoult once said, “You can’t edit a blank page.”
Let’s dive in, shall we?
In this first article, I’ll go over what fast writing is and why to write fast
Next, I’ll tackle how to do so, as well as when and where you might do so. Later, we’ll explore the editing process and why you should approach this at a slower pace to accomplish your best work.
What is Fast Writing?
Simply put: it’s writing fast. Getting words on paper without too much thinking or hesitation. Again, NaNoWriMo is a great example because it encourages just that: writing a book of 50,000 words in 30 days, which equates to 1,667 words per day, or approximately 7 typed pages.
When you focus on speeding through the completion of a first draft (or draft zero, as I prefer to call my initial rough drafts), there’s no time to overthink or second-guess. You are forced to put your inner critic aside (or locked in a cage in a land far far away) so you can focus on simply getting the story out as quickly as possible.
Why Write Fast?
There are several benefits. Here’s 5 reasons WHY:
1. High-volume productivity
Let’s say you write adult fiction novels, and the average word count for these is about 80,000 (still unsure? Click HERE for a free, fun quiz on Reedsy to get a fair estimate). Now imagine, you dedicated time and energy to blasting through the first draft at a rate of 1,667 words per day (we’ll use NaNoWriMo rules for the sake of example). That would land you a completed first draft in 48 days, approximately a month and a half! Then there’s the editing, of course. Let’s factor in 2-3 months of applying the same amount of time you did writing to fine-tuning your draft. From start to your finishing touches, the whole process will take about 4-5 months. Now, you need a break from that book. So, you send it off to beta readers, editors, and friends with an eye for grammatical errors. And while they’re all reviewing and prepping your feedback, you’re already working on your next book! See the pattern?
This kind of rhythm won’t work for everyone. But if you plan to write prolifically, this isn’t a bad formula for knocking out at least 2 books a year.
2. Keep the Creative Juices flowing
If you prefer to take a break from an initial rough draft before editing (as I do), then you could knock out two books sequentially, and return to the first book to edit. Once editing is done, you’ll have had a sufficient break from the second book and can return to edit that one. This way you maintain a writing habit, keep the momentum going, and still give your rough drafts a “rest” period before returning to them. That or, perhaps you could turn to another creative endeavor (painting, music, ice sculpturing…take your pick!*).
*Pun absolutely intended.
3. Practice makes better
I’ve often heard people say, “practice makes perfect.” But we’re not aiming for perfect—that’s an impossible task. We’re aiming to be better each day. How do you get better at writing? By writing! Like with anything else, we can study and read about craft all day but if we don’t actually put pen to paper (or fingers to the keyboard), how else are we going to teach our brains to push past writer’s block? The more often you write, the closer you’ll get to your writer’s voice. The more often you write, and edit, and implement feedback, the more often you’ll understand the mistakes you’re making and not make them in the first place. This in turn, means churning out better and better first drafts. Tada!
4. Overcome fear of the blank page
Have you ever had this big idea for a novel, then sat down to start and stared at the blank page, wondering…where do I start? Am I even the right person to write this thing? When you fast write, you don’t give yourself the opportunity to doubt your writing ability. You just do it. Think: Nike
5. Write it fast, write it bad
Okay, I don’t really mean that. Not everything you write in a first draft is going to be bad. But a lot of it will be. There will be all sorts of room for tweaking and deleting and adding. Characters who probably didn’t need to be there, “Sally” that became “Sandy” halfway through the manuscript and you didn’t even notice, flat dialogue, lackluster scenery, flowery descriptions that have nothing to do with anything… you catch my drift. My point is simply this: give yourself permission to write it however it comes out, as bad as it might possibly present itself. Because anything is fixable, but you can’t fix something that is nothing.
Okay… do I have you convinced? You might think, this is nuts. Or I have no time. Or where did I leave the remote? Or, perhaps, you’re chomping at the bit, ready to knock out that first draft, indexes poised at the F and J keys on your QWERTY keyboard. If so, stay tuned for my five ways on HOW to do that in Part II.
Chrissy’s work has appeared in three consecutive issues of Bridgewater State University’s “Embracing Writing” book for first-year freshmen. Her writing portfolio also includes publications in The Broadkill Review, SUSIE Mag, The Storyteller, and informative pieces for a local online newspaper. One of her unpublished novels, Foul Play, was a Suspense Finalist for the 2022 Claymore Award, and an excerpt from her unpublished novel Overshadow won Top Three Finalist of the 2024 Thomas Mabry Creative Writing Award. Though her background is in counseling, having earned a master’s degree in this field, when it comes to the art of writing, she’s an autodidact. She studies books she loves and enjoys completing various creative writing classes online, and attending writer’s conferences whenever she can; Killer Nashville is one of her favorites. Additionally, she’s volunteered since 2023 as a general editor for the Killer Nashville Magazine. She resides in Tennessee with her family, their talkative Husky, and a frenetic cat. You can find her online here: https://chrissyhicks.wordpress.com/ where she occasionally blogs about the writing life and reviews craft books.
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