I have found in an ancient file the beginnings of a novel I wrote when I was 13, shortly after the 4-H debacle when my calf behaved so despicably at the county fair and I was horribly humiliated. It’s fiction, so my heroine is doing everything right with her calf and winning a blue ribbon at the fair. I can see that I was trying to make everything “right” by writing it right. I realized this may be the reason for much writing by many novelists. Anyway, after all was well at 4-H with my heroine, she wanders in the fields at night enjoying the moonlight and watching a storm approach, sees lightning strike the barn and manages to sound the alarm, all animals are saved, etc., etc. Talk about compensation! And then the novel petered out and I remember at the time not knowing where to go next. I’d saved my psyche, I’d saved the farm, where else was there to go? Too young for sex.

I’m putting this pic back in because it’s of my calf and me at the fair. This too I drew at about 13, but showing the problem, not solving it.