writing a novel

In my working novel, Where Willows Take Root, My leading character is me in 1965 when I was 13. I lived on a major highway in a farming community, the 2nd eldest of 4. Whipping your children with a leather strap was not called abusive back then. Nor was wearing out a weeping willow tine on that child. I pick up the wonders of turning 13, how visiting an alcoholic grandfather in a mental institution drew us closer. He always called me his 'Chrissy'. I hated that to be called that by anyone else. But I loved to be called that by him. Maybe because it said dumb blond to me from anyone else. I also pick up the feelings of when my mom was sent to a mental hospital. They called it a nervous break-down. She weighted 91 lbs because she had stopped eating. Food make her vomit, even the smell. All the doctors in the world couldn't help her. At least not in the medical sense.