(NOTE: This title is not SEO friendly, heck the entire format of this blog is not SEO friendly. If you enjoy this installment of what’s going on in my brain, I hope you’ll share it with your friends.)
I’ve got a monster list of blog topics and I’m ignoring all of them in favor of a story I haven’t told in my blog.
A Walk Down Memory Lane
Most people know that I spent a couple of years as a rep for Dove Chocolate Discoveries – now known as The Cocoa Exchange – the direct sales arm of Dove chocolates. I was The Chocolate Lady.
In that role, my circle of acquaintances exploded, I learned to have fun in a way that I never had as a kid, and I generally gave the world The Bird. The networking began, I joined BNI, and tried to hustle chocolate parties without being too obnoxious about it. Additionally, I was doing some writing on the side.
Here’s the problem: at the core of my being, multi-level marketing is not what calls to me – even when the product is so super yummy. The expansion of my circle plateaued, the fun was becoming a drag, and I was not getting much gratification flipping off the structure I grew up with. While being the source of easy and amazing chocolate martinis was cool, it was no longer enough.
Then I came face-to-face with the possibility of losing one of my favorite writing projects. I had a hissy fit. And that is when, finally at 39 years old, the lightbulb turned on! If I had been in tears over the chocolate business for months (yes), and if the idea of losing a writing gig was so upsetting (yes), then maybe I was focusing on the wrong thing!
Emotional Revolution
![](https://torawriting.com/sandbox/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/WithChocolate-sm-300x200.jpeg)
That was on a Monday morning. By Friday morning I had: the domain, tag line, Commandments of Writing, and request for some business card ideas. I went to my networking meeting ready to fill out the paperwork to change categories. Before the meeting even started, I had multiple people tell me I was looking great and what was up. Just an emotional revolution.
Fast forward a bit, maybe a year, I ran into a friend (who I see regularly) and his wife (who I see rarely) in a restaurant. Knowing that I was doing something different, but not exactly sure what, she asked what I was up to. The passion for clear communication and the positives I took from being The Chocolate Lady summed up as, “Writing with Chocolate.”
Except for revamping my favorite chocolate blog, I haven’t written about chocolate. I do, frequently, eat chocolate while writing. I also think about chocolate with great regularity. Neither, however, fills my Chocolate Blog category.
What is Writing with Chocolate?
![](https://torawriting.com/sandbox/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/WithChocolate-2-sm-300x200.jpeg)
For me, this is the combination of many of my pieces and parts. Writing is my preferred form of communication and how I best put my thoughts together. I get a bit of a high helping clients get their message across. I definitely get a buzz when I get to that point with a client where I get it, they know I get it, and the ideas just flow into content.
I have fun figuring my clients out. What they do, what’s important to them, and explaining all of those things in a way that is true to them while connecting with their readers.
I moan and groan about my business. However, being a business owner is not what I mean when I say I’m writing with chocolate. And not all the writing I do is “with chocolate.” Writing with chocolate is when I’m in that place where I’m producing great content for great clients. It’s when I make a suggestion or observation that seems like no big deal to me while blowing my client’s mind. (It’s even convincing someone to not hire me because I know I’m not the solution they need.)
Writing with Chocolate is why I deal with all the other blech of being a business owner.
What is the “with chocolate” aspect of what you do?
– Lorrie Nicoles