Photo credit: Sheila M. Good
There are lots of places that writers stereotypically love to hang out: sidewalk cafes, bookstores, cabins overlooking picturesque mountain settings—and you can probably think of many more.
But cow pastures rarely make the list.
For South Carolina-based writer Sheila M. Good, though, that’s where her writing career started. “I began sneaking away and climbing the fence into the cow pasture,” she reflects. “Sitting by a stream, underneath tall oak trees, surrounded by white cows, I filled journals with poems and short stories, and lamentations of life.”
So great was the formative influence of the pasture that she now has a blog named for it. Cow Pasture Chronicles offers writing prompts, critiquing advice, book reviews, even a how-to on mapping out your manuscript using Microsoft Word. “After years of writing by a stream in a cow pasture,” she explains, “hiding my words from the world, between the pages of a worn-down journal, I have found my voice, and so I write.”
Don’t you just love visiting blogs you can come away from smarter than you were before? Be sure to check out Cow Pasture Chronicles and become Sheila’s next follower. But first, Sheila is going to explain to us what inspires her writing, and why she writes.
By the way, if any of this is getting you more excited about your own writing, be sure to submit your entry in the What Inspires Your Writing? contest!
Sheila’s two cents:
Writing is like purging my soul. Sometimes, the words I spew onto the paper are words I’m unable or unwilling to say aloud. Other times, I have a story to tell.
Whether it’s laughter or the dark side of life, the human spirit inspires me. I write in pursuit of lost memories, gathering them to me like a squirrel gathering nuts before the winter cold.
I’m inspired to leave a legacy of words and stories for my family. Stories to touch their hearts, comfort them, and memories they don’t have to spend a lifetime seeking.
But wait, there’s more! On her blog, Sheila goes into more detail about why she writes, and among her reasons is one I find particularly inspiring: “I write not that, in the end, my singular voice matters more than others do, or will move mountains, but perhaps, it will become one of many and create a chorus of positive change.”
I think we’d all like to be a part of that.
What inspires your writing? Submit your entry here for a chance to be featured on this blog!
What Inspires Your Writing? 
I am so honored. Thank you.
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You’re very welcome, and many thanks to you as well for participating!
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I’ll have think this through….
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Ah, love the last part. BTW, it sounds like a writing retreat. As for me, I fancy myself writing amidst nature – either near a beach or a river. And would love to simply have a room dedicated in my house to my books and a writing desk. Nothing else should make it way there… Until then, I’ll write my normal way…
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Quiet places like the cow pasture, when I was young, worked best for me. Now, it’s a quite room in the house, early hours of the morning, or outside on the patio. In the end, it doesn’t matter where we write as long as we do. Thanks for reading and commenting.
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This was interesting. I started my blog as a way to keep going… The imaginary friend that pushed me to post weekly that and I have blog followers so I had to post. I have to do everyday or I lose that crazy momentum. Although I don’t exactly have issues with word counts its finding kid free time. Plus I have to write a lot and frequent otherwise I go nuts like I might explode and end up in cleaning tantrums.
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Well, my hat’s off to you. I don’t write every day, but most. I try not to forget, living and writing is a delicate balancing act. Good luck with your writing and thanks for reading and commenting.
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The post brings to mind that we need to have some alone time to write. Writing is a solitary process at first.The cow pasture may have been great for the creative mind to hone in on the word. And if the photo is from the cow pasture then I wanna write there too. It’s lovely.
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Hi Torie,
I don’t know if you remember me, I was a member of the Spartanburg Chapter of the South Carolina Writer’s Workshop (SCWW). I met you once, maybe twice at a monthly meeting, before you left for school. I hope all is progressing well. No, the picture isn’t from the cow pasture, but the mountains nearby. Thanks for reading and commenting. Perhaps we will see each other again.
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