Getting paid for writing verses

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Following the period of letter writing my tutor suggested that the next step would be to write 'fillers' for magazines - one liners that editors use to fill up empty spaces when articles are too short to completely fill a page. I met with a complete blank on this, couldn't think of anything witty to write so I cheated a little and sent a poem as my task for that section. To my amazement he wrote back and said it was good enough to send to a card company and then suggested one to try, which I did. The company was well known in England, had lots of chain stores and they sold cards with the kind of verses I wrote. They liked mine and for probably a year or more they would send me details of the kind of 'sentiments' they were short of and I would send them half a dozen to choose from. This arrangement covered the cost of my writing course! I never knew if they actually used them until one day I dropped into the local shop and had a look through some of the cards. I had sold a number of poems about friendship so I looked in that section and found a card with one of my poems on the front entitled 'What is a Friend'. I can't tell you how excited I was! I bought the card and said to the saleswoman, I have to buy this because it has one of my poems'. She looked at me as though I was mad! This came to an end when the company was taken over and the style changed. The editor asked me for verses but they were not suitable for the new style. It was good while it lasted.