The Creative Bodega logo
Login

  • Oct 12

89: The 3 Things I Give AI So My Newsletter Still Sounds Like Me

Your AI draft sounds generic because nothing of yours is in it. Give it these 3 things and it starts sounding like you.

🌟 Why Your AI Draft Sounds Like Everyone Else's

You opened an AI tool, typed "write me a newsletter about consistency," and got back something that could have come from anybody. So you closed the tab and decided AI wasn't for you.

I understand that reaction. A generic draft is a good reason to be annoyed, and plenty of people swear off the tool right there.

But the tool wasn't the problem. Nothing of yours was in there for it to work with.

I started using AI to help write my newsletter after I launched my podcast in early 2025. My readers still get my stories, my opinions, and my edits. My open rate didn't drop, I didn't lose a bunch of subscribers, and nobody wrote in to say I used to sound like me.

In this post, I'm walking you through the three things I give AI before it writes a word, how I edit every draft, and where it still gets things wrong.

Want the short version? Grab the one-page cheat sheet, which includes my cleaned-up banned phrases list, right here.

✨ The Instagram Comment That Made Me Talk About This

Last week I posted a single image graphic on Instagram that said, "Let's normalize asking AI for a freebie idea and then deleting 39 out of 40 pages it gives you." I post a quote graphic like this based on my podcast every other week, and it always starts with "Let's normalize." Comments are my goal on Instagram, because I want people to talk to me.

Then a woman I didn't know wrote, "How about you normalize not using AI?" She followed me, I didn't follow her, and I replied kindly. Totally fair if AI isn't for you, but I'm a mom running a business in the hours between school pickup and dinner, and the judgment is still mine. AI hands me 40 pages, and I decide which one is worth sharing.

She wrote back right away that AI is hustle culture and I'm the one perpetuating burnout.

That stung, because if you know how I run my business, you know it's built around fewer hours. I take my summers off. I only work while my kids are in school. I've done whole episodes on eight-hour work weeks and running my business in maintenance mode. My minimum is two vacations a year with my family, and one home project if we can swing it.

I'm an Enneagram 9, so my first instinct was to keep justifying myself in my head until everybody was happy. Instead I replied once more ("I'm anti-hustle all the way, and that's exactly why I use AI") and closed the app. I don't owe a stranger a debate.

But it stuck with me, because I'd never walked anyone through how my drafts get made. I wasn't ashamed of using AI. I just didn't think anyone needed a play-by-play. I changed my mind.

🎯 The 3 Things I Give AI Before It Writes a Word

Some backstory first. I've had an AI account since 2023, but I started leaning on it in early 2025 when I launched this podcast. My launch coach, Anna, showed me how she uses AI, and we set it up to help me write my podcast transcripts. Words have never come easily to me. I'm not a wordsmith, and for years I wrote my sales emails, sales pages, and captions the slow way.

Now that weekly podcast transcript feeds all of my content, and AI drafts my newsletter intro and my three ideas from it. The transcript itself is about 90% scripted, and I work with Claude and my transcript writer, going back and forth until it's great. Everything else gets built on top of it.

1. A brand voice document with real samples

Describe your voice in adjectives like warm, witty, and conversational, and you get back something warm and conversational, which describes everybody.

My voice document covers my tone, how long my sentences run, the phrases I actually say, and the fact that I use colons and commas instead of em dashes. The part that does the most work is the real samples: whole newsletters I wrote before AI existed in my world, and captions I was proud of that AI had no part in.

Samples show it what you sound like, including the tangents and the one all-caps word I throw in once in a while. My Claude project knows I do that.

2. A story bank

These are the core stories I come back to again and again: starting my email list the week after I started my Instagram account, before I had a single thing to sell. My first course at $197 (I priced it so low, and there's a story behind why). How scared I was to hit send on my first newsletter. Each one is written out with what happened and the lesson I tell people it teaches.

I started with five stories and I'm at about 12 now. The bank grows out of my real life: when I tell a story in a draft or on the podcast, Claude notices and asks if I want to add it, then hands me the entry ready to paste. That's how my recent pivot got in.

AI can't invent your life. Without real stories, it makes up generic ones, and a made-up story in your newsletter chips away at the trust you're building.

3. A banned list

I have about 40 hard bans, phrases and words that can never appear, and around 70 once you count the softer limits, the filler phrases, the coach speak, and the words that sound like AI the second you see them. Em dashes are on there. So is the number 47, which is the fastest AI tell in the world, so watch for it in posts and subject lines.

The list covers patterns too: stacking short dramatic fragments, asking three questions in a row, and the "not this, but that" construction.

I didn't write it in one sitting. Every time AI gives me something that makes me cringe, I add it. It's a living document, and it's the reason my drafts start so much closer to the finish line.

All three live together in one Claude project, which I think of as one of my AI employees. When I work on an episode, I open my podcast transcript editor and it already knows my voice, my stories, and the words I never use. I refine it constantly, and if something slips through, I tell it to go back and check my banned list.

💡 How I Edit Every Draft

I never take the first draft of anything AI gives me. That goes for podcast transcripts, newsletter intros, and Instagram captions. The first draft is where the filler lives.

I go back and forth five to six times. My rounds sound like: make it shorter, I don't love the angle, take that phrase out because it's on my banned list, say it more like I'd say it to a friend, this sounds too corporate. Each round gets a little closer. Then I paste it into my newsletter and keep editing.

The most useful thing I do at that stage is read it out loud. If I stumble on a sentence, or it comes out as something I'd never say, it's out.

I'm a talker, not a typer, so I also use the voice option and speak my changes to Claude. My instructions come out sounding so much more like me, and it learns from my voice that way too. Whisperflow keeps coming up in my DMs for this, and it's on my list to try.

✅ The 3 Mistakes That Make AI Writing Sound Robotic

People who say AI makes everything sound the same have a point. They're usually describing what happens when you take the first draft and use it as is. Your job is to be the editor with the fine-tooth comb, and these three mistakes show up over and over:

  • Giving AI nothing to work with. You get generic back and blame the tool.

  • Running with the first draft. That's where all the filler lives.

  • Letting it invent stories, examples, or numbers. If it didn't happen to you or your client, it comes out.

My test for every draft: if I read this out loud to a friend over coffee, would she know it was me? If the answer is no, I find the part that's off and fix it. AI drafts, and I decide.

📊 My Real Numbers

My newsletter used to take me an hour to an hour and a half every week. Now it takes 30 to 40 minutes, which adds up to roughly a full week back over the year. I spend that time designing, recording, and being present with my kids instead of staring at a blinking cursor.

I also wondered what happened to my open rate, so I asked Claude (in Cowork, where it can reach my platforms) to pull my yearly average from Flodesk. These are newsletters only, with no launch emails included:

  • 2024, before I used AI: 51.9%

  • 2025, when I started leaning in around the middle of the year: 52%

  • 2026, almost ten months in: 57.4%

I won't tell you AI caused that jump, because it didn't. Plenty goes into an open rate, and a big piece of that increase is that I started cleaning my list very regularly to keep it healthy. Creators who spin their numbers bother me, so I'd rather give you the honest read: using AI didn't hurt, and if anything it helped. I'll do a whole episode on how I clean my list if you want one, so tell me in the comments.

📬 Why I'm So Picky About This

A newsletter is where someone gets a big chunk of you. On Instagram, a person can see my face 50 times and still not know whether I'm funny or whether I curse. In an email, they spend three, four, five minutes with you, in an inbox they own.

I heard on a podcast that only two platforms aren't driven by an algorithm: your website and your newsletter. If your newsletter could have come from anybody, it can't do its job.

One note on tools: I use Claude. I switched from ChatGPT because privacy matters to me, and that's my personal call, not a recommendation. Read the privacy policy of whatever you use. Everything above works in any platform.

🌿 Want Help Building Yours?

Everything in this post is what's happening inside The Newsletter System right now, my live cohort program that runs twice a year. In week two, we get into your voice, your tone, how you sound, what you say, and what you never say, and I give you templates to fill in on your own. We're on week three now. [Join the waitlist for the January round](INSERT LINK).

🛠️ Resources & Links

💪 Start Small, Then Make It Yours

If this feels like a lot, start small. You don't need 12 stories in your story bank on day one. And if you've decided you don't want to use AI at all, that's totally okay. I'm not trying to convert anyone. I'm showing you what's possible for people like me who love building the business and avoid the blank page.

Try this week: take one thing you wrote with AI, read it out loud, find three lines that don't sound like you, and add them to your banned list. That's how the list starts and how your drafts start sounding like you.

Remember the woman who said AI is hustle culture? I get roughly a full work week back every year, and I'm not spending it hustling. I'm spending it on work I love and with my family.

AI can speed up the writing, but it can't be you, and I don't want it to be me. You're the reason people get to be on your list and open your email in the first place.

If you want more support building sustainable newsletter and email systems alongside other solopreneurs, come hang out inside The Content Coven.

Know a solopreneur who's on the fence about AI? Send her this post.

What's one line AI keeps writing that you would never say? Drop it in the comments.

0 comments

Joinor login to leave a comment