[Day 8] đĄOwn 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*
Hi! Welcome to Day 8 of our brand-new career training series, âHow to Use a Newsletter to Change Careers, Rebrand Yourself & Strut Into an All-New Industry With *Swagger*ââmuahahahahaha.
-Ash
Table of Contents
Day One: Whatâs Your Newsletterâs Job?
Day Two: Whatâs Your Newsletterâs 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 Thatâs Stickier Than a Jam Packet
Day Eight: Own Your Voice & Dare to Take Up Space âŹď¸
Day Eight: Own Your Voice & Dare to Take Up Space
You ever read something and immediately know exactly who wrote it?
Thatâs what we call voice. That elusive parable of the gods.
Itâs that thing that makes some peopleâs words pop off the page while others sound like they were written by a comatose LinkedIn executive after a Toastmasters eventâand itâs ALSO the thing that makes your voice distinctive. âĄď¸
Being called a âvoiceyâ 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 wasnât my writing. What! A! Compliment!
Good, internet-sticky, voice-driven writing doesnât just inform. It doesnât just tell people things. Or, god forbid, âcommunicate.â It makes âem feel something. It surprises, delights, punches you in the nose, and makes you want to actually read the thing.
The best part? Voice isnât something you have or you donât have; itâs a skill you can build. đŞ (Says the girl who teaches people how to write with more personality via her other newsletter, shhhhhhh!)
SO, DAHLING, letâs talk today about how you can find your voice even if itâs 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 anywhereâeven if youâre scarred from a lifetime of corporate jargon, or canât 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, LETâS RIDE.
1. YOUR VOICE IS NOT AN ACCIDENTâIT'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:
1ď¸âŁ "I had a great time at dinner last night with my friend."
2ď¸âŁ "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.*** â This, right here, is key. đď¸
Your writing voice isnât about what you sayâitâs about how you say it. Itâs about the little collection of words you choose to string together: thatâs what makes it a craft.
Here are a few other examples:
1ď¸âŁ "He's really good at his job."
2ď¸âŁ "If being a spreadsheet wizard were an Olympic sport, heâd have at least three gold medals and a sponsorship from Excel."1ď¸âŁ "Iâm bad at small talk."
2ď¸âŁ "Within five minutes of meeting someone, I either talk about existential dread or the mating habits of penguins. There is no in-between."
1ď¸âŁ "The restaurant service was slow."
2ď¸âŁ "I had enough time to read the entire Wikipedia entry on 19th-century lighthouse disasters before my pasta even thought about arriving."
That last oneâlike, 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. Itâs human. Itâs real. And, it helps us find & hang with people like us (because we can clearly see who they are).
Word choice is EVERYYYTHINGGGG.
More on this in a minute!
2. HIT âEM IN THE FACE WITH A CROWBAR đ§
Fabulous imagery.
But no, really: great, voicey writing does something that other writing doesnât.
It violates your expectations.
And, this is one place where being violated is a good thing. Nothing kills writing faster than predictability. đ´ If readers already know what youâre going to say before you say it, they check out.
Thereâs actual research about this, too. Iâm not just pulling it out from under my armpit. Itâs called âprediction error cost.â Fancy! Itâs what happens when a reader thinks they know what youâre gonna sayâŚand then you completely violate that expectation. *smack* When their predictions are incorrect, this makes âem concentrate harder on what youâre 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 Iâm quoting myself from my own book? I DONâT KNOW, but letâs pretend Caitlin Moran wrote them. Iâm going into witness protection.
Examples:
"Thereâs terrible advice, and then thereâs 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 Zenâthis is war."
"Imposter syndrome is a funny little liar, designed to keep you safe, but terrible at making you strong."
"Achievement without purpose isnât nobleâitâs a crisis."
"Chronic boredom doesnât come from not having anything to do: it comes from doing the wrong things."
âAuthority 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! đĽ
If your writing feels flat, itâs probably not specific enough.
This is gonna sound bananas, but the more weirdly specific you make your sentence? The better itâs 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 âJUST FEEL IT OUTâ over the sound of screeching tires."
See the difference?
The human brain doesnât latch onto abstract conceptsâit latches onto details. Mhmmmm. I love me some details for breakfast.
Letâs Play a Game:
Below is a sentence that is technically fineâbut itâs missing personality. Rewrite it using hyper-specific details.
Sentence: "She walked into the room and caught everyoneâs attention."
đ How, specifically, was she walking?
đ What, specifically, was she wearing?
đWhat was, specifically, different about it?
đ 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 turnedânot because of the confidence, but because, honestly, we all assumed she was here to rob the place."
4. AVOID THE CORPORATE-SPEAK MONSTER đ§ââď¸
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. Letâs 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 worldâŚ"
I regret to inform you that youâve turned into a human press release. Nobody talks like this in real life.
Fixing the Bland Bio:
đ Boring: âJane is a leadership coach who helps people build confidence.â
đ Better: âJane gets paid an obscene amount of money to yell at Fortune 500 executives until they believe in themselves.â
đ Boring: âTom is a passionate entrepreneur dedicated to helping others.â
đ Better: âTom once spent $40,000 trying to invent a new kind of granola bar. It failed spectacularly, but the man knows how to take risks.â
Your bio should sound human.
Sometimes when Iâm 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 Iâm telling my best girlfriend over an audio message (and can therefore use down-to-earth âreal peopleâ 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 đĄ
The last sentence of anything you write? Prime real estate.
Itâs the punctuation mark on their entire experience.
We HAVE to smack âem with something that sticks.
Your final sentence is the mic drop momentâthe 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"âthe 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 (whatâs up, Game of Thrones).
A strong ending:
âď¸ Seals your messageâIt reinforces your point in a way that actually sticks.
âď¸ Leaves an emotional imprintâWhether itâs humor, curiosity, or inspiration, your last words should do something to your reader.
âď¸ Encourages sharingâPeople 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
đŤ Go out with a whimper. Saying something like, "And thatâs why finding your writing voice is important" is the equivalent of a standing ovation followed by someone muttering, âThanks, I guess.â It falls flat.
đŤ Summarize like a high school essay. If your last sentence sounds like, âAnd in conclusion, this is why creativity is valuable,â youâve missed the point. Readers donât need a summaryâthey 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 lingersâsomething funny, surprising, memorable, or just the right amount of unhinged.
Your last sentence is the echo of your writingâitâs what bounces around in your readerâs brain long after theyâve left. So whatever you do, donât 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. đ
FINAL THOUGHT-A-ROOS
Finding your writing voice isnât about inventing something newâitâs about getting rid of everything thatâs watering you down.
The more you remove the corporate-speak, the clichĂŠs, the generic fluff, and the overthinking, the more YOU will shine through. đ
And people donât want generic. They donât want safe. They want YOUâloud, opinionated, smart, wonderful, and unfiltered. Honestly, isnât that why you read anyone? To see the world through their eyes?
Stay tuned for Part Nine of Ten, coming next! đ
Revisit past lessons here:
Day One: Whatâs Your Newsletterâs Job?
Day Two: Whatâs Your Newsletterâs 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 Thatâs Stickier Than a Jam Packet
Iâm not a career coach who helps grads get jobs with confidence. Nope. I help smart college students get career and job search smarter. đ¤ Thanks for the bio advice Ash!