[Day 8] 💡Own Your Voice & Dare to Take Up Space

How to Use a Newsletter to Change Careers, Rebrand Yourself & Strut Into an All-New Industry With Swagger

Mar 06, 2025

Hi! Welcome to Day 8 of our brand-new career training series, “How to Use a Newsletter to Change Careers, Rebrand Yourself & Strut Into an All-New Industry With *Swagger*”—muahahahahaha.

-Ash

Day One: What’s Your Newsletter’s Job?
Day Two: What’s Your Newsletter’s Big Idea?
Day Three: Is My Newsletter Idea Any Good???
Day Four: Which Newsletter Software Do I Use?
Day Five: What (The Hell) Should I Write About in My Newsletter?
Day Six: How Do I Make My Newsletter Fascinating, Sticky, Memorable & Sellable?
Day Seven: Write a Hook That’s Stickier Than a Jam Packet
Day Eight: Own Your Voice & Dare to Take Up Space ⬇️

Day Eight: Own Your Voice & Dare to Take Up Space

You ever read something and immediately know exactly who wrote it?

That’s what we call voice. That elusive parable of the gods.

It’s that thing that makes some people’s words pop off the page while others sound like they were written by a comatose LinkedIn executive after a Toastmasters event—and it’s ALSO the thing that makes your voice distinctive. ⚡️

Being called a “voicey” writer is my favorite fucking compliment. I remember once, my literary agent told me she picked up one of my pages to read off her desk, and as soon as she started reading, she knew there had been a mix-up: it wasn’t my writing. What! A! Compliment!

Good, internet-sticky, voice-driven writing doesn’t just inform. It doesn’t just tell people things. Or, god forbid, “communicate.” It makes ‘em feel something. It surprises, delights, punches you in the nose, and makes you want to actually read the thing.

The best part? Voice isn’t something you have or you don’t have; it’s a skill you can build. 💪 (Says the girl who teaches people how to write with more personality via her other newsletter, shhhhhhh!)

SO, DAHLING, let’s talk today about how you can find your voice even if it’s been buried under a pile of rotten tomatoes for the last 13 years, and make it so distinctly yours that people could recognize YOUR writing anywhere—even if you’re scarred from a lifetime of corporate jargon, or can’t seem to shake the academic essay off of you, or simply just think you sound like a weirdo on the page. We love weirdos on the page!

I am such a weirdo on the page.

ANYWAY, LET’S RIDE.

1. YOUR VOICE IS NOT AN ACCIDENT—IT'S A DECISION

Most people assume their writing voice is just... whatever comes out when they start typing. Wrong. Your voice is what you choose it to be.

What This Means in Real Life:

Think about these two sentences:

1️⃣ "I had a great time at dinner last night with my friend."
2️⃣ "Last night, Katie and I inhaled three orders of dumplings, a bottle of red wine, and then made deeply questionable decisions on Amazon. Five stars."

Both tell you the same thing. ***But only one tells you something about the person behind the words.*** ← This, right here, is key. 🗝️

Your writing voice isn’t about what you say—it’s about how you say it. It’s about the little collection of words you choose to string together: that’s what makes it a craft.

Here are a few other examples:

1️⃣ "He's really good at his job."
2️⃣ "If being a spreadsheet wizard were an Olympic sport, he’d have at least three gold medals and a sponsorship from Excel."
1️⃣ "I’m bad at small talk."
2️⃣ "Within five minutes of meeting someone, I either talk about existential dread or the mating habits of penguins. There is no in-between."

1️⃣ "The restaurant service was slow."
2️⃣ "I had enough time to read the entire Wikipedia entry on 19th-century lighthouse disasters before my pasta even thought about arriving."

That last one—like, you KNOW you want to be friends with that person. That person sounds like such a good time. That person is not going to have the personality of a box.

And, we like that. It’s human. It’s real. And, it helps us find & hang with people like us (because we can clearly see who they are).

Word choice is EVERYYYTHINGGGG.

2. HIT ‘EM IN THE FACE WITH A CROWBAR 🔧

Fabulous imagery.

But no, really: great, voicey writing does something that other writing doesn’t.

It violates your expectations.

And, this is one place where being violated is a good thing. Nothing kills writing faster than predictability. 😴 If readers already know what you’re going to say before you say it, they check out.

There’s actual research about this, too. I’m not just pulling it out from under my armpit. It’s called “prediction error cost.” Fancy! It’s what happens when a reader thinks they know what you’re gonna say…and then you completely violate that expectation. *smack* When their predictions are incorrect, this makes ‘em concentrate harder on what you’re saying, because now they feel like a duncey shithead. And THAT, therefore, increases reader engagement.

See? Look at us learning!

Here are a couple of examples of sentences that totally hit you in the face with a crowbar (never saw that coming!).

Is it weird I’m quoting myself from my own book? I DON’T KNOW, but let’s pretend Caitlin Moran wrote them. I’m going into witness protection.

Examples:

"There’s terrible advice, and then there’s the type of advice that makes you want to fake your death and ride bareback on a donkey through Cleveland."
"I am a fickle bitch, and it's one of my greatest qualities."
"Oh, look! I made it to 2025 without committing suicide."
"As a woman, you must be brave enough to cause problems. Make no mistake: this is the opposite of Zen—this is war."
"Imposter syndrome is a funny little liar, designed to keep you safe, but terrible at making you strong."
"Achievement without purpose isn’t noble—it’s a crisis."
"Chronic boredom doesn’t come from not having anything to do: it comes from doing the wrong things."
“Authority only works as long as you trust that someone smarter than you is making the rules."
"The way you become a force is by being the most radically real version of yourself that you can be. That, and learning how to parallel park."

Your brain loves surprises. So do your readers.

3. NO VAGUE FORTUNE COOKIES ALLOWED! 🥠

If your writing feels flat, it’s probably not specific enough.

This is gonna sound bananas, but the more weirdly specific you make your sentence? The better it’s gonna be. (See? I told you being weird was good in writing.)

Bad writing says, "He was a great dad."
Good writing says, "He taught me how to drive stick shift in a Walmart parking lot while chain-smoking Pall Malls and shouting ‘JUST FEEL IT OUT’ over the sound of screeching tires."

See the difference?

The human brain doesn’t latch onto abstract concepts—it latches onto details. Mhmmmm. I love me some details for breakfast.

Let’s Play a Game:

Below is a sentence that is technically fine—but it’s missing personality. Rewrite it using hyper-specific details.

Sentence: "She walked into the room and caught everyone’s attention."

👉 How, specifically, was she walking?
👉 What, specifically, was she wearing?
👉What was, specifically, different about it?
👉 What were people specifically thinking when they saw her?

Example fix:
"She strutted into the room in a leopard-print trench coat and bright green boots, holding a martini in one hand and a broken high heel in the other. Every head turned—not because of the confidence, but because, honestly, we all assumed she was here to rob the place."

4. AVOID THE CORPORATE-SPEAK MONSTER 🧟‍♂️

You know those blowhards who talk in business buzzwords to make themselves sound important even though they probably have a fungus all over their toenails? The ones who say things like, "Let's leverage our core competencies to optimize synergy in the space?"

Yeah. Them. Let’s never be them. Not in real life, and not on paper, either.

If your bio sounds like this:
"Helping change-makers stand in their power and speak their truth to make their mark on the world…"

I regret to inform you that you’ve turned into a human press release. Nobody talks like this in real life.

Fixing the Bland Bio:

👉 Boring: “Jane is a leadership coach who helps people build confidence.”
👉 Better: “Jane gets paid an obscene amount of money to yell at Fortune 500 executives until they believe in themselves.”

👉 Boring: “Tom is a passionate entrepreneur dedicated to helping others.”
👉 Better: “Tom once spent $40,000 trying to invent a new kind of granola bar. It failed spectacularly, but the man knows how to take risks.”

Your bio should sound human.

Sometimes when I’m having a hard time, I think to myself: how would I describe this thing to my best girlfriend? That almost always works, because I realize that the awful elevator pitch I was just working on in my head that sounded WAYYYY too awkward & stiff, magically gets transformed when I pretend I’m telling my best girlfriend over an audio message (and can therefore use down-to-earth “real people” words and describe it in a way that people *outside* of my industry would actually get).

5. YOUR LAST SENTENCE IS PRIME FUCKING REAL ESTATE 🏡

The last sentence of anything you write? Prime real estate.

It’s the punctuation mark on their entire experience.

We HAVE to smack ‘em with something that sticks.

Your final sentence is the mic drop moment—the last thing your reader sees before they close the tab, walk away, or decide to hit "forward" and share your work with someone else. A strong final sentence makes your writing memorable. And memorable writing gets shared, re-read, and talked about.

Why Is the Last Sentence So Important?

Psychologically, the final sentence taps into what cognitive scientists call the "recency effect"—the tendency for people to remember the last thing they read more vividly than anything else. Our brains are wired to latch onto endings, which is why movies with terrible final scenes feel like a bigger letdown than they actually are (what’s up, Game of Thrones).

A strong ending:
✔️ Seals your message—It reinforces your point in a way that actually sticks.
✔️ Leaves an emotional imprint—Whether it’s humor, curiosity, or inspiration, your last words should do something to your reader.
✔️ Encourages sharing—People are WAY more likely to quote or forward an article with a zinger of a final line. Fact.

What NOT to Do With Your Ending

🚫 Go out with a whimper. Saying something like, "And that’s why finding your writing voice is important" is the equivalent of a standing ovation followed by someone muttering, “Thanks, I guess.” It falls flat.

🚫 Summarize like a high school essay. If your last sentence sounds like, “And in conclusion, this is why creativity is valuable,” you’ve missed the point. Readers don’t need a summary—they need a parting shot.

How to End With a Bang

Instead of wrapping things up neatly with a little bow, end on a note that lingers—something funny, surprising, memorable, or just the right amount of unhinged.

Your last sentence is the echo of your writing—it’s what bounces around in your reader’s brain long after they’ve left. So whatever you do, don’t waste it on something forgettable. Make it punch. Make it weird. Make it so unmistakably you that people could pick it out of a lineup.

And if all else fails?

Just add more expletives. 🚀

FINAL THOUGHT-A-ROOS

Finding your writing voice isn’t about inventing something new—it’s about getting rid of everything that’s watering you down.

The more you remove the corporate-speak, the clichés, the generic fluff, and the overthinking, the more YOU will shine through. 🌟

And people don’t want generic. They don’t want safe. They want YOU—loud, opinionated, smart, wonderful, and unfiltered. Honestly, isn’t that why you read anyone? To see the world through their eyes?

Stay tuned for Part Nine of Ten, coming next! 💃

Revisit past lessons here: