An experiment…
“I want to sound more like myself but I don’t know where to start.”
So this one came from you. In our workshops and in founding member calls, different words every time, same sentence underneath. You have been asking me where to start.
So here it is... I am running a rewiring experiment and August is where it happens. Thirty-one prompts, one a morning, all aimed at the plain, unguarded way you sound before you have decided who is reading. I am doing them alongside you, and at the end of the quarter I will tell you what I found, including the parts that did not work.
Every honest sentence you keep lays a little new track beside the path you have walked ten thousand times. You see something, you feel it, you put it on the page in a form you can act on, and then you do it again tomorrow, which is the part that actually changes how you sound.
Some prompts will feel light. Others will make you squirm, and those are usually the ones doing the work. There are no right answers, only the chance to know yourself a little better than you did yesterday.
Happy rewiring.
Before you start: ten minutes a morning, pen and paper if you have them. If you are finding this after the first of the month, do the August 1 prompt today anyway, because week four measures against it, then pick up on today’s date. If you miss a day, skip it and write the next one. This runs on accumulation, and a chain with holes in it still counts.
One ask: when you finish the August 1 prompt, put one line from it in the comments. Not the polished line. The one you would have deleted.
Week one: meeting yourself on the page
Catching what you actually think, before you edit yourself into someone more acceptable.
August 1 Record a two-minute voice memo ranting about something that annoyed you this week, then transcribe it word for word. Keep the ums. That transcript is your baseline, and you will read it again on the 22nd.
August 2 Write down the last thing you said that made someone laugh. Look at why it worked.
August 3 Finish this line ten times without stopping: “What I actually think is ______.” No editing, just go.
August 4 Describe one moment from this week twice. Once as a text to your closest friend, once as an email to someone you barely know. Circle every word you swapped.
August 5 Write about something you love that you are a little embarrassed to love. The embarrassment is the tell.
August 6 Write down the advice you give other people most often, in the words you actually say out loud. You have said it a hundred times, which means it is already yours.
August 7 Reread the week and underline the one sentence that sounds most like you. That is your anchor for the month. Copy it somewhere you will not lose it.
Week two: shedding the borrowed self
Setting down the phrases, and the beliefs underneath them, that were never yours.
August 8 List five phrases you use that you picked up from work, from other writers, from someone you admire. Just name them.
August 9 Take the one you use most and say out loud what you would tell a friend instead. Then write down what you said.
August 10 Finish this line: “I’m supposed to sound ______.” Then write down who taught you that, and when.
August 11 Write down a compliment you have been chasing for years. Then write what you would make if you stopped needing it.
August 12 Name one belief hiding inside how you write. “I have to be impressive.” “I can’t take up space.” Write it in plain words.
August 13 Write about something you changed your mind on. Shedding an old idea is practice for shedding an old self.
August 14 Reread the week and cross out every sentence that sounds borrowed. What is left is closer to yours.
Week three: telling the truth out loud
The tender stretch. The sentences that feel dangerous are the ones that reveal you.
August 15 Write the sentence you have been avoiding. The one that feels too honest. Nobody has to see it yet.
August 16 State an opinion you would normally soften. Cut the “I might be wrong, but” and let it stand on its own.
August 17 Write about a want. Something you actually desire and rarely say out loud.
August 18 Describe a time you said you were fine when you were not. Now write the truer version.
August 19 Write down a doubt you carry, in the exact words it uses on you. Word for word, the way you would transcribe a stranger.
August 20 Write down what you are afraid people will think if you sound exactly like yourself. Then write what has actually happened the times you did.
August 21 Reread the week, choose the truest sentence in it, and send it to one person by name. One person, not an audience. That is the whole ask.
Week four: coming home to yourself
Turning self-recognition into a practice instead of a high you chase and lose.
August 22 Read your August 1 transcript out loud. Then read a page you wrote last week out loud. Mark what changed.
August 23 Name your tells. The words and the rhythms that turned up in both pages, not the ones you wish were there.
August 24 Write your rules for writing in your own voice. However many there are.
August 25 Write down what you noticed about yourself this month that you did not expect. Describe it without fixing it.
August 26 Write the same paragraph twice, once at your natural length and once in half the words. One of them sounds more like you. Note which one, and why.
August 27 Write the piece you would publish if you were not managing anyone’s opinion of you. Give it a title and a first line.
August 28 Write one sentence in the voice of the writer you are becoming, present tense, as though it is already how you sound.
The last three days: what you carry into September
August 29 Write a short letter to the person who sat down on August 1. Tell them what you found.
August 30 Look at the sentence you underlined on August 7. Is it still the truest thing you have? Choose again if it is not.
August 31 Put that sentence where you will see it every morning in September, and post it in the comments so the rest of us can read it.
With love and courage,
Magdalena
Your pen is your permission slip.
P.S. The live session lands on August 15, the first morning of week three, which is the week that terrifies us the most. It is on rewiring how we create. $57, and free if you are a paid subscriber.
📅 August 15, 2026 · 4:00 PM EST · 75 minutes · $57 (Free for paid members)
August 1 - And I've got so much good around me but all I can think of is the shit I don't like.
Ooohhhh! I just found this! I’m going to do it starting tomorrow.