How do you write for business - using your senses?

'He'll see you now Eileen.'

The assistant held the door open for me and I walked in hand outstretched, deep breathing to stop the rising panic in my abdoment.

What's in your mind when you read those words? It's an interview? Or maybe a doctor's appointment or is it the dreaded bank manager?

In that case it was the bank manager, back in the days of 'real' bank managers, who weren't your friend who said yes but rather held you to account all the time.

Now if you've ever had any kind of interview where you felt nervous you could conjure up the same feelings as I had on that day. Newbie commercial manager, new company, new role. Out of my comfort zone by a factor of 10.

So in a few words I've made a connection - to a universal event and to a set of emotions which most people in business can share.

When people tell me business is factual, rational and emotionless I want to laugh. Because that's not my experience of being in business... or of how other people in business behave.

Last week I went networking. Small event which I like because it gives you chance to talk to people instead of threshing around trying to shower business cards around the room.

Let me give you 3 examples of emotion and passion I found in those business people.

1. Manager of very successful local bus company in charge of their flagship route. The energy flying off him could have powered the room.
2. Owner of a waste recycling company. So inside his subject and how he could help other businesses save money.
3. Manager for a local business organisation. Passionate about using resources wisely to help sustain small businesses.

None of those fed me facts and figures. Instead they all connected at a level of how they could serve other people.

Yes businesses want to save money. They also want their problems solved.

That means we have look from the inside out as if can see it from their perspective. As if we can hear their moans as yet another problem lands on their desk. And as if we're they're when they go home the end of the day with a stress headache.

So when you write to connect with prospective customers write about how you can give them a good night's sleep because you've solved their most pressing problem. Write about how they can expand their business because you've blitzed an obstacle out of their way. Show them how they can't possibly live without your service.

If you're not passionate, why should they be?

Inpsirational quotes for writers

"No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft." -H.G. Wells

Where and how do you get published

I have no financial advantage here but I pass on this link for you to check out.

www.writersmarket.com

Learning to write books

"It's none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way." -Ernest Hemingway

Inspirational quotes for writers

"There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." -W. Somerset Maugham

Does reading make you a better writer

Somebody said to me recently that I have a big appetite and I quipped "That's why I eat so much chocolate then."

Chocolate aside, and I should never put chocolate aside (by the way there's some very tempting chocolate in the Delilah shop in Nottingham at the moment in exotic designed tins) having a big appetite is certainly true of my reading.

Sometimes I've hoovered books up at a rate that I couldn't tell you what I've read. However, as a writer do I read in a different way?

The great John Carlton always says that if you like something in a book, you should go back and work out why it appealed to you.

Why did it grab you, rock your world or bring you to tears?

Does that spoil your reading enjoyment? Well I tend to read the book through, then go back and check it out.

Does it mean that you'll end up writing like that person? Most of us are derivative as beginning writers. What's important is that we work through that stage to find our voice. That essential 'us-ness'. How long that take us depends on what we're trying to write and how passionate we are about reaching that individual voice.

I'll never write like someone who comes from a different culture, race or background. I admire those who can do that. Elizabeth George pulls it off in 'What came before'.

All I can aim for is to write from the honest core of me. Reading other people doesn't obstruct that. It makes it easier because the books I connect with all have that honesty.

Read on. Read wide. Read with passion.

Then spin off into space to turbo charge your writing.

What is genius?

Came across this quote from Goethe.

"What is genius but the faculty of seizing and turn to account everything that strikes us?"