20 Writing Prompts To Help You Create Your Writing Voice
This question comes up in The Intuitive Writing School Community coaching sessions and in many of my one-on-one client conversations.
“How do I find my writing voice?”
It’s a common question. And if you’ve ever taken to an internet search to find the answer, you’ll find no shortage of advice, practices, and tips to “just do it” and “just start writing.” Which is true to an extent. But this advice isn’t all that helpful.
If I stare at this page long enough, maybe I’ll find my voice.
You know I do things differently, so my advice is going to go deeper.
When people are afraid to start their blog (Authentic Visibility will help!) send a newsletter, or write their book — it’s not that they’re afraid of doing the writing.
👉 They’re fearful of what doing the writing means.
If they do the writing, that means they have to share the writing. Which means being visible and opening themselves up to criticism and internet haters. It comes with the job. That said, I can count the number of shitty comments I’ve received in a decade of writing online on one hand.
Are you worried about writing because you’re afraid…
Of sounding like everyone else?
You’ll offend someone?
Your family or friends will all talk about you?
That your opinion will change?
Of sounding like a rambly robot with nothing important to say?
What I say to all this… GOOD!
🗣️ If you sound like someone else right now, that’s a message to tune out the outside voices and focus on yours.
🗣️ If you offend someone, that’s on them — not you.
🗣️ If your family and friends talk about you — fantastic! They’re spending their precious time and energy focusing on YOU and what you’re DOING. This is the law of increase at work! Learn about the 12 univeral law’s in 12D B-School.
🗣️ If your opinion changes (good chance it will), then update it later or leave it alone.
🗣️ If you sound like a robot, it’s an opportunity to practice writing more like you speak. I’m guessing you don’t talk like a robot, right?
This is just a small sampling of some of the things my coaching clients and students say to me. And I hear you.
I also have to tell you that when I first started blogging circa 2012, I had many of these thoughts. In my early days of food blogging (which used to be a plant-based food blog), I worried that...
My opinion was unoriginal
That I didn’t sound smart enough
I wasn’t a doctor, dietitian, or nutritionist, so who am I to talk about food?
And to make it worse, on a few occasions, I got emails from other food and lifestyle bloggers saying that I stole their content. I didn’t.
I don’t need to say that stealing content is a shitty and low-vibe move; it’s also illegal.
All this to explore how to write in a way that feels authentically, you.
Isn’t cafe writing the best?
This is what most writing advice misses:
Your writing voice isn’t something you find — it’s something you create.
This is great news because what if you set off on a search to find your voice and never found it?
Instead, you’re driving this boat. You get to choose your voice — today, next week, and years from now. You get to develop and refine your writing voice every time you take to the page to write.
Every blog, email, web page, and social post. You slowly, over time, create your voice. And the best way to do it… you guessed it… writing!
Not, reading about writing 😉
My top recommendations to help writing school students create their writing voices:
Write morning pages.
Morning pages clear the noise from your busy mind so you can come to the page with more focus. Here’s why I love morning pages for manifesting.Write — a lot.
It doesn’t have to be daily. And it certainly doesn’t have to look good. Some writing coaches will tell you that you need to write every day to call yourself a writer. Make a writing plan (like this 12-week one), and stick to it. Even if you decide your blog publishing schedule is weekly, every other week, or monthly, writing on a schedule is the best practice. In the beginning, when I first started blogging, long before it was a business, I set out to publish five days a week. The schedule was intense, and once I got on a roll of writing and publishing daily — and getting ahead on the weekends, it became easier. And before long, I had tons of articles.Go on a media diet.
I consume very little content. And when I do consume content, it’s intentional and separate from my writing time. This is my favorite way to keep other voices out of my head and to focus on what I want to say. If I’m focusing on a big writing project like a book, I’ll pause on reading any books even remotely related.Pretend you’re emailing a friend.
Especially if you have a business, writing in a friendly and conversational tone will connect with your reader and build trust. And people buy from people they trust. Write as if a friend or your favorite client emailed you with a question, and your blog post is merely an email reply to your friend. Helpful, clear, and in words they can understand.Avoid writing to your peers, colleagues, or competitors.
Unless your writing is intended for those audiences, know who you’re writing to. Usually, your audience isn’t your colleagues or your family. The language you’d use to write to your peers is probably way different than the language you’d use with your customers.Read it out loud.
This is also one of my favorite editing tools. Read your writing aloud and ask yourself if it sounds like you. Are these the words you’d actually use? Does the tone sound much more formal and buttoned-up than how you naturally speak?Join a writing group or get a writing coach.
This can be virtual, like The Intuitive Writing School community, with some trusted members of a mastermind you belong to, or with some supportive business friends. Ask them to read your writing and give them some guidelines to focus their review — does it sound like me? Does this make sense? Am I missing anything?
💙 Love note: Creating your writing voice takes time.
I’ve been writing online since 2012. You won't find many blog posts from back then since most of my writing was focused on plant-based recipes and living a minimalist lifestyle. There are a few oldies on here that I kept around, though like this one from 2013. Do I like or even agree with everything I wrote back then? Nope. But I didn’t stop. I kept writing.
Remember, the world is your canvas and you get to add as many layers to your body of work as you choose.
You don’t need to read a bunch of books on writing to get started. I drive this message home in my 2023 released book, Intuitive Writing.
Craft your writing voice, one email, blog, tweet, or chapter at a time.
Simply start.
20 writing prompts to help you create your writing voice:
Who are you?
By starting with YOU — you get to figure out what makes you happy. You mean business, and this is not a hobby, and when you start creating content from a feel-good, grounded place, the rest will be so much easier.
Start a blank document or journal page and answer these questions. If you can time this with a new or full moon, even better!
💡 Move quickly, stay out of your head, and notice what you feel in your body. Write the first thing that comes to you for each question. No thinking or judging — you’ll go back and review your writing later.
What do you believe to be true?
You do the work you do because…
This is why you do the work that you do…
You serve people best by…
Did you have a turning point/low point/A-HA moment leading you to where you are today? More than one?
What lights you up?
What makes you angry about your industry?
How do you feel every time you get ready to work with a client / do what you do?
What are people always asking your advice on?
What advice do you actually enjoy giving?
What would most people be surprised to know about you?
What do you want every client to know?
You want to live in a world where….
You want to create a world that…
When you’re not helping clients solve their problems, we can probably find you…
How do you feel about writing?
How do you feel about recording your voice?
Recall a time when you felt in the flow. What were you doing?
What's your theme song for your life? Also known as your fight song?
Picture your most aligned, powerful, sovereign self — no fear, fully confident — what do you look like?
What to do when you’re finished.
First, save these responses. You’ll draw inspiration for your writing here. And second, make sure you take some time away from your answers. Take a day if you can. When you take time away from a journaling session, you’ll continue getting new ideas and inspiration. This integration time is magic!
When you go back in, read your responses without judgment and make tweaks and additional notes as they come to you.
Any time you feel stuck in your writing process, come back to these questions. Start fresh and see what wants to come through. Pick one question that’s nudging you. Or pick the one that’s triggering you.
Trust yourself.
If you enjoyed this article on creating your writing voice, you might like these too:
How To Flow With Nature for More Inspired Writing and Editing
Fear of Writing: It Might Not Be What You Think. 10 Powerful Writing Prompts.
Healing the Throat Chakra and Speaking Truth To Be a Better Writer
P.S. Inside The Intuitive Writing School Community, you’ll get daily writing prompts. The doors are open!
