Early last fall I read an article written by Wanda Loskot and followed the link to her Web site. Sometime during the hour or so I spent there, I entered a contest for a free tele-class. To my surprise, I won a spot in the class and got to know Wanda's voice, her enthusiasm and her personal outlook on writing as the mainstay of her life on the Internet.

Wanda grew up in Poland, where she was a journalist. She left Poland "for economic reasons," and did not return immediately to writing. Now, however, she writes more and more. With pleasure, I share some of her with you in this interview.

Chas:
Do you think everyone should write a book?

Wanda:
I think everybody who has convictions should write a book. Even Charlie Manson, let him write a book if that would serve psychologists to figure out what makes monsters. But should everyone write a book? No.

First, most people don't know how to write well, don't know how to communicate. That doesn't mean they have a boring life or that they could not teach us lessons. I think we can learn from everyone, but not everybody's a good communicator and not everybody can translate their life and their life's experience and their ideas and concepts into something that's readable.

Second, I really believe there's too much crap available. Maybe e-books are easier, because with paper books, why waste paper, trees? That's one of the reasons I didn't write for a long time. I wanted to wait to write until I felt I *had* to contribute.

When I was very young, in my 20s, I started to write my Polish novel. Before I even finished the first two chapters, my editor just fell in love with it, and he said 'we'll publish it,' and boom! I struggled five years trying to finish it. I came to the realization I didn't want to write. Why should I write something just because I want to be finished? So I put it away.

Chas:
How did you come back around to being a writer?

Wanda:
My father was a writer and journalist, and it was the thing I wanted to be. I was raised in Poland, and the only thing you could do freely was be a journalist. Everything else was state-held. Since I was young, I wanted to be a writer or a detective. I couldn't be a detective, so became a writer, then exited from that writing when I came to the West.

A little of the reason I left writing was the change of language. But when I came to America, I saw so many writers. It floored me how many good writers don't get read, and I didn't want to have to fight for audience when I didn't have something really powerful to say.

So, years later, I came back as another type of writer because I am compelled. I *must* tell people what I know.

Sometime, maybe soon, I'm going to write that novel in the Polish language. Just the one novel, I have no patience for more. It will be the same novel, but it will be of course completely different. I want to put into it everything I've learned. And I've learned a lot. I am compelled to write it and beg people to read it. I didn't have that motivation before.

When I was young, I had nothing to say but it was very easy for me to write. Now that I have something to say, writing is very hard for me, but I do it because I must.

Chas:
What do you most like to write?

Wanda:
I am not a prolific writer. I am a lazy writer. Writing is not easy for me. I write all the time because I have to and because I have to say those things. The issues that interest me the most, what is the most compelling for me to share is writing about love and business, about how love and business are connected. I think that was the most profound discovery of my life -- that the personal life should be connected with business.

Our business is part of our lives just like our personal life is. All those issues of loving business and loving our clients and expressing ourselves through work, all those issues are so meaningful for me, they've brought so much into my life that I just can't help but be willing to share with people. I tell them -- please, please, go do this.

Chas:
I remember you saying once that e-mail is the most important tool any of us has online. Want to talk about that?

Wanda:
When I receive e-mail, I make instant judgments about how thoughtful the person is depending what's in the headline and how I am addressed. I know that very often it's not accurate, just as people who are well-dressed and taken care of are not always successful, or people who have clean hair are not necessarily good people.

In an environment such as e-mail, the only impression you can have about me is e-mail. You don't see my face, smile, body language, expression. So I pay attention to those little niceties in e-mail, and I advise everybody to use them. Because I observe how I'm reacting to e-mails.

An e-mail that is without salutation, without a meaningful subject line, without nice formatting, has to have a lot of substance that is meaningful to me to make a nice impression. I get so many requests in e-mail, but when I get something from a person asking nicely, asking me by name, and who has paid attention to formatting the letter, I'm much more likely to respond.

I'm practicing what works. That's why I use "Dear so-and-so," because it's traditional. In the traditional world in business, it was always "Dear Whoever," and I think it's warmer, for me, than "Hi" or "Hello." "Dear" is a form of compliment in my language, like opening the door. I'm letting you know I'm open for friendship. But it's always about being nice, the niceties.

I learned to be nice and very polite from my husband. He's an extremely polite and nice person, even to spiders. He'll find a little napkin and walk the spider away from home, and after 20 years with him I'm nicer than I was. I pay lots of attention to being nice, and this is part of the coaching I do, part of that philosophy of how to be happy in business. It begins with being extremely nice to other people.

When I write an e-mail, I want people to know it's from a nice person, someone who knows their name and is thinking about them with friendship.

And each time I discover some new wonderful anything, I want to tell my friends about it, so I write an e-mail. I write an article. I teach a class.

Chas:
Any last comment about writing as a tool?

Wanda:
I think that being observant and understanding the metaphors of our lives is part of what makes us not only good writers but also good teachers and good philosophers.

And as philosophers, we have things to say so maybe we become writers. We can just talk in writing, imagining the person sitting next to us, talking like friends, explaining what we know.

Chas Ridley is writer and publisher - visit her website at hotbooks.com for an interesting selection of ebooks (some offfered free of cost!). You can also contact her via email chas@hotbooks.com.