You Don't Have To Be A Genius To Write A Love Poem

You Don't Have To Be A Genius To Write A Love Poem
by: Marguerite Bonneville

Love poems are a wonderfully romantic gesture and can often express your thoughts far more eloquently than verbal communication.

If you have some talent with words, why not take a few moments and try your hand at writing a poem for your lover? Just sit down and list all the reasons why you think they're special. Then put them into some kind of free verse format: a wide column of lines, roughly the same length, which may rhyme but don't need to.

Even if your poem won't win any literary prizes, the person you present it to will most likely treasure it as if it were composed by one of the great Romantic poets. People tend to value a personalized gift far more than one that's purchased. What they're really appreciating is the time and effort invested on their behalf.

I'd like to share a story of the first time I received a love poem.

When I was twelve years old I had a crush on Robert, the new boy in my class at school, and he had very generously decided that I was "cute". One afternoon we were waiting with some classmates at the bus stop when he announced that he didn't like me anymore. He was now in love with my best friend, Julie.

I was so incensed by this betrayal that I lunged at him and chased him down the street. He swerved into the gutter and I bolted after him just as the bus pulled in. It hit me from behind and I went down. The bus then ran over my right foot.

A short time later, the ambulance arrived and the paramedic driver examined me. He decided that I didn't need hospitalization so he drove me home with instructions to spend the next six weeks in bed. Meanwhile, a distraught Robert was blaming himself for the accident. He asked the other children at the bus stop where I lived, and walked the two miles to my house. Then he sat across the street on the pavement, wondering if my father would strangle him if he knocked at the front door.

A couple of hours later he worked up the courage to confront my father, which turned out to be something of an anti-climax because my father had no idea about Robert's part in the drama. When Robert tiptoed into my room he handed me a sheet of paper; he had written a poem for me as he sat across the street from my house. I remember how thrilled I was that someone would do such a thing. It was like something out of a novel or a movie.

I kept that poem, which ran to one and a half legal pages, for a number of years, until it disappeared when we moved house a decade later. But I still remember the first four lines:

Her name is Marguerite
I very much like that girl
She means much more to me
Than any gem or pearl

That was a lifetime ago and yet those words remain in my memory.

As for the boy himself, by the time I got back to school Robert had moved on to greener pastures (he now liked my best friend's new best friend). But that hardly mattered as I was now a minor celebrity because I got hit by a bus while chasing a boy. The nuns had a field day praying for my soul, which was not the last time they'd engage in that futile exercise.

My right foot is still a little flatter than my left but it was worth it for the notoriety. And hey, Robert, wherever you are, thanks for the memory.

Using Other People's Love Poems

If you don't have Robert's literary talent, there is another option. Find an existing poem that best expresses how you feel and present it to your lover inside a greeting card or gift.

There are a number of sites online that offer love poems. You can find a list on our web site or do a keyword search.

Top Ten Tools for Writing Humor

Top Ten Tools for Writing Humor
by: David Leonhardt

Ever want to write a funny book or a humor column? Or add spice to your newsletter editor or web page so that people read beyond the typical drivel that sends otherwise eager-to-spend customers into a boredom-induced coma?

Here are my top ten favorite humor tools for you, along with real live examples from my own humor column.

Threading a theme through the text.

Are you into practical jokes? Try sewing a single thread of bright red wool across Uncle Henry's new green golf shirt. Or sew a thread through your text.

My Parenting Pumpkin Cheesecake Recipe is actually a delicious recipe. But I assumed there is a little helper around, and I threaded her through the text, making for sort of a running gag.

OK, time to up-tempo the laughs. Mid-way through, I run a second thread, renaming the cake with each mistake. The thread within a thread multiplies the humor.

See http://thehappyguy.com/pumpkin-cheesecake-recipe.html

Contrast what should be with the obviously deficient reality

I use this technique in Home Of The Year. Most people will agree that a home is more than just a house.

I contrast the reality of my I-survived-the-hurricane home with the Martha Stewart image of how a home should look -- the old little-miss-perfect Martha Stewart image, not the new-and-not-improved, scandal-defying, corporate shark image.

Notice I also use the threading tool in this piece – the drawings on the wall -- and bring it together at the end to reinforce the main point.

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/home-of-the-year.html.

Build on a ridiculous notion

Consultants call this thinking outside the box and charge you for it. I call it humor and give it to you for free.

I had a bad hairdresser day. I held my hairdresser accountable for my thinning hair, a ludicrous idea that works.

Let's up-tempo the laughs. Mid-way through, I compound the humor with another ludicrous notion: growth formula making my scalp taller rather than my hair thinner.

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/hairdresser.html .

Mock a public figure

This is possibly the easiest humor tool to use. Public figures are just so mockable. They naturally rise to their own level of mockability. I wrote a column mocking Michael Jackson – and the media's over-fascination with his arrest. That was one of my worst columns, so I won't show it to you. Hey, I said it was easy, not funny.

Don't see.

Act like a clown

I start off my Vulture column, based on a true news story, by playing the fool, saying silly things and displaying a general ignorance. This gives my uncle the opportunity to set me straight. In classic Laurel and Hardy style, the straight man makes the comedian funny.

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/humor-vulture-value.html .

By the way, this also allows a humorist to be funny on touchy subjects, without offending.

The heckler

I love to inject a heckler into an already silly situation. I applied a news story about a law suit over cow hormones to my "New York Times best seller". It was actually a bit like mocking a public figure, but what made this column exceptional is how Ruby Red kept interjecting her own slightly out-of-context comments into what was already a silly situation.

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/best-seller.html .

Give human characteristics to non-humans

This is a great tool for laughing at human foibles. It is at the very heart of Gary Larson's Far Side cartoons. I offered leadership lessons from six penguins who were helping the other penguins live up to their full "penguinhood". This is also based on a news story, although some of the penguin dialogue had to be contrived.

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/penguin-leadership.html .

Build laughs upon laugh

My favorite column is where I try so hard to be a giver, but everybody makes me out to be a taker. I start with the simple premise that givers sleep better at night.

The whole column is a play on words, but what makes it one of my best is how I react to people calling me a taker. You can feel the desperation, and almost picture me running away in horror. This is the same tool every stand-up comedian uses; as your laughter subsides, a new punch line builds on the previous one.

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/give-sleep.html .

Give funny names to things

I itemized a whole series of customer service styles. One of them was "do-it-yourself extortion". Need I say more?

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/customer-service.html .

Funny faces and weird sounds.

"Oh no, waa-aah ... boom ... ouch! ... bump ... yikes! ... crash." "Bhrhrthrpt." Those are just two of the sound effects I use to describe extreme fatigue. Words or not-quite-in-the-dictionary sounds can paint a pretty funny picture.

See http://www.thehappyguy.com/extreme-fatigue.html .

There are many other well-known humor tools available, such as exaggeration, playing deaf, reversing roles and throwing cream pies. If you figure out how to do that last classic in a humor column, please let me know how.

Are You Talking To Me?

Are You Talking To Me?
by: Scott Lindsay

In poetic literature you will often find a poem that seems to be inviting the reader to participate in an adventure or a love story. The use of ‘you’ is evident in the poetry, but in most cases the reader understands that the poem is written to a third party and the author is simply allowing you the opportunity to read these moments of intimate conversation.

Possessives in poetry, marked by an apostrophe, are a way to understand that the poem is written for and to another person – even when written from a first person perspective.

There is, however, a unique form of writing called Authorial Intrusion that will find the author breaking away from the storyline and speaking directly to the reader. This technique is sometimes used to take a work of fiction and make it seem somehow real. This is accomplished when the storyteller breaks from the action to talk directly with you.

Authorial Intrusion can also be used in poetry and is used extensively in persuasive essays. In fact, in essays Authorial Intrusion is often used as a means of allowing a personal voice of persuasion to assist in the point being argued.

You can see the use of Authorial Intrusions in old detective movies where they step out of the shadows and talk to the audience about what they are thinking. This particular adaptation has been used for comic effect in recent years as it has been used extensively in film parodies.

As film and fiction writing have matured the use of Authorial Intrusion has diminished. Sometimes Authorial Intrusions make a work seem amateurish simply because the audience is informed of an impending scenario just before the scenario plays out. It can come across as redundant and unnecessary.

Here’s a short example of Authorial Intrusion…

“Ben had assumed there was nothing to fear on the plateau, but he didn’t see the grizzly bear approaching from behind.”

This particular example really isn’t needed in the context of the story. If the story is indeed Ben’s then allow the reader to experience the emotions Ben has when he makes the surprising discovery.

In the case of fiction writing Authorial Intrusions should be minimal in a worst-case scenario and eliminated altogether in a perfect world. When you choose a Point of View in which to tell the story it is best to allow that voice to remain as consistent as possible throughout the narrative.

Seven Cs to Avoid Procedure Writing Errors

Seven Cs to Avoid Procedure Writing Errors
by: Chris Anderson

You do your best to make sure your organization is operating as effectively as possible. But if your policies and procedures are incomplete, outdated, or inconsistent, then they are not driving the performance improvement they should. When employees try to use incomplete or undefined procedures, waste and costly errors soon follow.

Case Study: Little Mistakes Add Up Quickly

Without knowing it, employees at a local auto parts company were having a costly problem determining when to accept customer credit. The company actually had a detailed credit application procedure, including an exhaustive error correction routine, but the procedure had one fatal flaw: it was not properly indexed.

Indexing Improves Usability

Without a way to readily locate and reference the applicable procedure in the operations manual, employees could not find it and were simply not using it at all, leading to an inconsistent process and wildly varying output. Potentially valuable customers were regularly turned away by some staff members, while others accepted bad credit risks because they were unsure of which ones to reject.

A small omission like this can add up to thousands of dollars in lost sales and good will. Even the most thorough procedures inevitably have gaps that come from being "too close" to the process or not following the basic rules of effective procedure writing.

Profit from Experience

To be effective, procedures must be action oriented, grammatically correct, and written in a consistent style and format to ensure usability. These guidelines, along with industry "best practices" that are documented in auditable criteria, can be used to improve your procedures:

1. Context. Actions must properly describe the activity to be performed.
2. Consistency. All references and terms are used the same way every time, and the procedure must ensure consistent results.
3. Completeness. There must be no information, logic, or design gaps.
4. Control. The document and its described actions demonstrate feedback and control.
5. Compliance. All actions are sufficient for their intended compliance.
6. Correctness. The document must be grammatically correct without spelling errors.
7. Clarity. Documents must be easy to read and understandable.

Quickly Improve Your Policies and Procedures without the Hassle

You can quickly resolve these usability problems and improve performance, and also upgrade your documentation to "best practice" standards without hassles or commitments. By beginning to improve your documents, you will be able to identify areas for improvement. And you can start today with the 7 Cs of “best practices”.