2) Use strategies for drafting

Original ideas: One of my favorite things on the farm was a huge pine tree.
                        I was going through some hard times then.
                        I had a picture that I always treasured of my family.

Revised: As I look back, I can remember one of our biggest pine trees in the backyard. As you stood next to the trunk, you could barely see the scraggly branches at the top with almost no pine needles still clinging to them from many storms through the tree's years. As I reached up, I could hear the bark under-foot crackle with age, and feel the warm sap leak onto my chilled fingers.

           On that picture was a young girl – me. Sitting with my mother and father – happy, with a smile on my face. It had been taken about a year ago. Before everything started changing, splitting in two, and me in-between it all.

            Now it was my last year on the farm because soon I would be moving into town with my mother while visiting my father every chance I could get because my parents were getting a divorce. As I started to turn away from the tree, I felt my sadness overwhelm me. I stopped myself, gained control, and put a smile on my face. I would get through this. As I started walking to the farm house I still called home, I knew things would be different. Things will change and I won't have any control but to just go with it. Now it was my time to be strong and so, walking away, I was scared. But I am strong.