'Till the Cows Come Home

Growing up, my parents would say things like "that girl won't quit talking 'til the cows come home" or "she's a slow learner - those cows will be home before her knees are healed" and so much as I'd like to think they were talking about someone else, I'm an only child. An only child who never stopped talking, dreaming, climbing trees, and playing football. I can't say I've done much tree climbing or football as of late, but the talking and dreaming has served me well. However, let's go back to that colloquial phrase: 'Till the Cows Come Home. It'm not quite sure of the exact origin of the phrase, and some say claim John Fletcher's 1616 The Scornful Lady, I digress...in the here and now, I live on a dairy farm and our cows come to the barn twice a day to be milked, so I found myself perplexed since I thought the cows coming home was similar to pigs flying. Apparently in the Scottish Highlands, the cattle (they aren't actually cows, but steers) spend months grazing on the common grass until autumn when they come home to feed. All in all, it just means: for a very long time.

Now that we've completely over thought that entire thing, let's move onto the point. Here's where I say something completely profound:

WRITE 'TIL THE COWS COME HOME!

No matter how little you believe in yourself or how many naysayers there are, if it's in your heart to write, you just keep writing 'til those cows come home - then write some more! Use your journal, use social media, use your blog, start your novel, submit to those contests, etc... Just keep writing. I started writing as a child. A group of us put together a newspaper just for our block. We drew pictures, wrote short stories, jotted down poems, and made copies for our subscribers (who were mainly our own parents). I took great pride in writing essays and articles during school and university, and then as a professional I wrote training manuals and marketing materials. I never would have dreamed I'd be here - working on a book, writing blog posts, helping promote authors, etc...but those cows aren't home yet, so I'm just going to keep writing!

Now, back to you. How are you doing on your writing? I want to encourage you to keep writing, and if you don't have anything lengthy enough for a novel just yet, how about submitting to one of our dynamite contests? Write something short, submit it, get some feedback, win some prizes, get some encouragement from others! Sounds like a great idea all the way around!

What are you working on? What are your writing goals? Can you commit to writing 'til the cows come home?

While you ponder those questions - check out the winners of our recent Essay Contest! 

Crystal is a council secretary and musician at her church, birth mother, babywearing cloth diapering mama (aka crunchy mama), business owner, active journaler, writer and blogger, Blog Tour Manager with WOW! Women on Writing, Publicist with Dream of Things Publishing, Press Corp teammate for the DairyGirl Network, Unicorn Mom Ambassador, as well as a dairy farmer. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband, five young children (Carmen 11, Andre 10, Breccan 4, Delphine 3, and baby Eudora), two dogs, four little piggies, a handful of cats and kittens, and over 230 Holsteins.

You can find Crystal riding unicorns, taking the ordinary and giving it a little extra (making it extraordinary), blogging and reviewing books, baby carriers, cloth diapers, and all sorts of other stuff here, and at her personal blog - Crystal is dedicated to turning life's lemons into lemonade!