Elisabeth – you are a sweetie! Thanks for the encouragement! I do feel I’m getting there. And if this story isn’t the right one, at least I’ve learned heaps from writing it. 🙂

You SO deserve to get ‘The Call’, as you are able to adapt your story to the guidance being proffered by MH.

And your writing is brilliant as well…. :o)

There is no way MH would still be bothering with you if they didn’t have a publication date in mind!

So you keep going, girlfriend. You are going to make it.

How I think about it, is that the conflict has stemmed from a quality about her – her high intelligence – and her reaction to that quality. ie, her conflict comes from inside her.
She has always felt different – she didn’t even feel like part of her own family because of this quality that (she feels) makes her different.

Now, when you’re a kid, all you want to do is be the same as everyone else. So did my heroine. This anger and feeling like she didn’t belong, was exacerbated by the special treatment she got at school. Again, nobody is making her feel this way, she decides how she feels about it.

So her conflict is about her response to something inside of herself, conflict that has been added to by the situation (school). Not to the situation itself. Does that make sense? I think I’m confusing even myself!

This could all be total b*llocks of course, which you’ll find out when this story is rejected. 🙂

Is this right?

You can’t have your h feeling insecure simply because she’s a member of a specific social group. One defined by tastes in music/liking for computers (ie a geek.) Simply being a geek is no reason to feel ashamed or insecure.

Neither can she be ashamed of the way she is (a geek) just because of another person’s bad treatment of her (ie her mother has criticised her for being a geek and made her feel ashamed)

Her baggage, now,is that she has always felt different. Initially this wasn’t because anyone had made her feel different but because she is different– She’s super intelligent. (genetic)

But she feels insecure because her high intelligence resulted in her being put in an accelerated learning class and this made her feel different from her peer group.

But isn’t that similar to the original h’s mother making her feel insecure, because she told her she was different? Only this time the school is telling her she’s different instead of her mother. She’s been made to feel different because of the school’s treatment of her.

Except the school isn’t trying to make her feel bad about it like the mother was.

Maybe this is the difference? No-one is telling her how to feel. The insecurities come from the situation, not somebody’s criticism of her?

Jo – great that it does fit with your class. Maybe that means I’m doing something right?? No problem with the sharing, I’m learning heaps from the process myself.

Lorraine – I think the only way to know if the oracle says yes is if the book sells. Oh please God! 😉

Here’s hoping the oracle says yes!

You will be fine, you’re a great writer and they like you 🙂

I love these posts. Thanks again for sharing so freely what you’ve been learning.

(This might make you smile – someone came to my blog recently after googling ‘afternoon tea stands’)