Never Give Up

Argh and I had such high hopes for Never Give Up, the story I submitted to Woman's Weekly back in May. I know Clare Cooper can take up to 8/12 weeks these days as there's only two staff and one part-time assistant in the office, so I wasn't unduly worried. Sometimes, if a story doesn't come winging back within that time, it can mean it's in with a good chance and stupidly, that's what I thought might be happening. After all, weren't they short of the longer mystery?

Anyway, when a writing friend got a 'yes' this morning for something she subbed quite a while after me, I did what I loathe to do(and editors dislike, too)and chased it up. Clare got back to me within minutes to say it'd been declined (so much nicer than 'rejected') on July 13th. I'd either missed it in my in-box or it got lost in cyber space. I do like the people at WW. Unlike some editors, Clare will always answer a 'chase' even though I know she must be drowning under piles of mss.

So, what to do with it now? It's around 4000 words and has already been declined by Take A Break. I could try My Weekly but I'll have to wait until next month as they're only allowing one sub per month these days and I've already got my July one in. It's def not suitable for The People's Friend...the story has suggestions of s-e-x before marriage, shock, horror!

It's not really competition material so that isn't an option. And it's far too long for a BBC radio script - they want 1900 to 2000 words which runs to around 14 minutes.

Never Give Up is based loosely on a script I wrote during a TV drama writing course tutored by Chrissie Hall who's written for the BBC's Doctors series. That was a couple of years ago now and it still hasn't sold. Is it time to give up on it? Certainly not! Even if it has to undergo some massive editing, it will eventually sell. As the title says, Never Give Up!