How to Write Like Yourself (Even When You're Writing for Someone Else) Ghostwriting, freelancing, brand work, client content—it’s all still you.

Jun 27, 2025

There’s a strange thing that happens when you start writing professionally:

You learn how to disappear.

You start adapting to tone guides, mirroring someone else’s voice, and internalizing a brand’s preferred punctuation style. You shift not just what you say, but how you say it.

It’s a skill. And it matters. But over time, the more client work you do, the easier it becomes to forget what you sound like in the first place.

So—how do you write like yourself when your job is to write like someone else?

Here’s the good news:
You don’t have to choose between authenticity and adaptability.

You can hold onto your writing identity even while shape-shifting across projects. Here’s how.

Step One: Know What Your Voice Is

Before you can protect it, you have to be able to recognize it.

Your voice isn’t just your vocabulary or whether you use em dashes (though, same). It’s a blend of rhythm, emotional tone, perspective, and thought pattern. Think about:

How your sentences tend to move
What kind of metaphors or examples you naturally reach for
What emotional vibe your writing leans toward—gentle? irreverent? meditative?

Your voice might be dry and observational. It might be lyrical and earnest. It might be funny with a vulnerable undercurrent.

That’s your baseline. That’s the you-ness you want to keep—even when the audience isn’t you.

Step Two: Voice vs. Tone (Why This Matters)

Voice is your signature.
Tone is how you use it, depending on the room.

When you ghostwrite or freelance, you’re usually adjusting tone, not erasing your voice. You’re shifting your delivery. Maybe you become warmer, bolder,and more concise. But the bones of your writing? Still yours.

You don’t need to flatten your personality to sound “professional.” You just need to tune your instrument to the space you’re in.

Step Three: Leave Breadcrumbs

Long projects can make your own voice feel distant. Try leaving yourself little markers of creative connection:

A doc of lines that felt like “you,” even in disguise
A voice memo after a satisfying paragraph
A scrap folder of phrases you liked but couldn’t use

You don’t have to mine this material for later—just let it remind you that your voice is still intact, even when it's dressed in someone else's style guide.

Step Four: Write Something That’s Just Yours

To stay connected to your writing voice, you need a place to use it freely.

That might be a journal. A Notes app poem. A one-line-a-day document. A private Substack with zero subscribers. The point isn’t polish or output. It’s voice maintenance.

You’re not a ghost in your client work—you’re a chameleon. But even chameleons need a tree to call home.

Step Five: Trust the Throughline

Even when your name isn’t on the piece, your fingerprints are there.

In the clarity of your logic.
In the shape of your paragraphs.
In the rhythm that settles into your sentences like muscle memory.

You don’t lose your voice by using it in different ways. You deepen it. You stretch it. You make it multilingual.

The Bottom Line

You’re allowed to be versatile without being generic.
You’re allowed to be professional without being robotic.
You’re allowed to adapt without erasing the writing self you’ve worked hard to build.

Writing for someone else isn’t the opposite of writing for yourself.
It’s a different kind of practice.

And your voice—the one that knows how to anchor, adapt, and invite—makes that work stronger.

The Unrewarded Heroes

By Liz Dubelman

My husband once saved a man's life and nothing happened.

We were at a steakhouse with our journalist friend, the kind of place where the waiters still wear bow ties and the prices make you grateful for expense accounts. My friend and I sat side by side on the red banquette, sharing gossip and stealing glances at the couple having what appeared to be either a breakup or a business merger at the corner table. My husband sat across from us in one of those rickety chairs that restaurants seem to acquire specifically to test the commitment of their male patrons.

We'd just finished our meal—the leather envelope was prepped with his credit card like a loaded gun, ready to deliver the final blow to our monthly budget. That's when I noticed the very large man at the table in front of us had stopped making conversation and started making the universal face of someone whose dinner had taken a wrong turn down his windpipe.

I knew he was choking because I myself had survived this particular dining disaster. When our daughter Hope was exactly two months old, we were advised by well-meaning friends to preserve "date night" as if it were an endangered species. So there we were, at a waterfront seafood restaurant, trying to remember how to have adult conversation while simultaneously calculating how many minutes we had before our babysitter called to report that our infant had somehow learned to operate the microwave.

I'd ordered lobster—because nothing says "we're still sophisticated people" like cracking shells with tiny hammers in public. The moment I took my first bite, my husband launched into what he swore was the most hysterical joke he'd ever heard. I inhaled to laugh, and the lobster took the opportunity to relocate from my plate to my trachea, like a very expensive, very uncomfortable necklace.

I became my husband's first Heimlich patient that night. The steakhouse guy twenty years later would be his second.

After my husband wrestled the chunk of prime rib from the man's airway—a feat that required him to literally lift this gentleman from his chair like he was hoisting a particularly uncooperative suitcase—nothing happened. No applause. No "dinner's on the house." No grateful handshake or tearful embrace. The man coughed, sat back down, and resumed cutting his remaining steak as if the near-death experience had been nothing more than an aggressive hiccup.

Even now, twenty years later, my husband is still trying to make me remember that joke from the lobster incident. I suspect it wasn't actually funny, and that's why my brain has chosen to permanently delete it, like a computer's antivirus software protecting me from harmful content.

Which brings me to my current situation: I've been shopping for a therapist.

Ideally, I'd like one within walking distance so I can get my steps in—because if I'm going to pay someone to listen to my problems, I might as well burn calories getting there. I've interviewed four so far, and I've devised a system that would make any social scientist proud. I tell them each the same story about a fight I had with my husband, one that ended with me storming off to watch Netflix in our daughter's now-empty bedroom, surrounded by the ghostly remains of Harry Potter memorabilia and participation trophies.

The first two therapists were covered by insurance, which should have been my first red flag. They were interchangeable women in their early thirties, both with the same earnest expressions and the same psychology degree apparently purchased from the same catalog. After hearing my tale of marital discord, both delivered the identical verdict: "I think you handled that well."

I didn't handle it well. My husband and I spent the evening in separate rooms, marinating in our respective righteousness like two pieces of meat in different marinades. I guess if the threshold for "handling it well" is that nobody ended up featured on the evening news, then sure, I'm practically a relationship guru.

The third therapist was in her early seventies, with the kind of steel-gray hair that suggested she'd seen every possible variation of human dysfunction. I told her my story, expecting some nugget of hard-earned wisdom. Instead, she leaned back in her chair and said, "You must understand that people don't change. We should work on your exit strategy."

Lady, I thought, you're in the wrong business. You should be selling divorce attorneys, not therapy.

My new therapist is exactly two miles from my house—a perfect Tuesday afternoon constitutional. I usually like to call someone during my walk to her office, partly for the company and partly because talking on the phone while walking makes me feel like I'm multitasking my way to mental health.

It was on one of these walks, during a particularly vindictive rainstorm that seemed personally offended by my umbrella, that I stumbled into my own unrewarded heroics.

I was mid-conversation with my sister, explaining why I thought my husband's habit of leaving cabinet doors open was actually a passive-aggressive form of psychological warfare, when I nearly tripped over what looked like a small leather wallet lying on the sidewalk. But as I bent to examine it, I realized it was a passport—specifically, a passport that had been having a very bad day in the rain.

The photo showed a man in his fifties with the kind of forced smile that suggested he'd been told to "look natural" by a DMV photographer. His name was something unpronounceable with lots of consonants, and according to the stamps, he'd been having quite the European adventure before somehow losing his most important document in my neighborhood.

I interrupted my sister mid-sentence to announce my discovery, then spent the next twenty minutes of my walk trying to explain to her why finding a passport felt like being handed a small but significant quest by the universe.

My therapy appointment that day was particularly productive, mainly because I spent the entire session talking about what I was going to do about the passport instead of my usual litany of domestic grievances. My therapist, Dr. Martinez, seemed genuinely interested in this development—probably because it was the first time I'd brought her a problem that didn't involve my husband's relationship with kitchen appliances.

"You could just turn it in to the police," she suggested, which was clearly the sensible option and therefore completely unappealing to me.

"But what if he's in some kind of travel emergency?" I countered. "What if he's stuck somewhere, frantically calling embassies and trying to explain to skeptical officials that he's not actually a spy, just a tourist who can't keep track of his documents?"

Dr. Martinez nodded in that way therapists do when they're either deeply engaged with your moral dilemma or mentally calculating how many minutes are left in the session.

I called the police first, partly out of civic duty and partly because I wanted to cover my bases in case this turned into one of those stories that ends with me accidentally harboring an international fugitive. The officer who answered the phone sounded like he'd fielded approximately ten thousand lost passport calls that week.

"You can drop it off at the station," he said with the enthusiasm of someone reading a grocery list, "or you could try calling the embassy. They have procedures for this kind of thing."

The embassy was a revelation. The woman who answered the phone had the kind of crisp, professional voice that suggested she could solve international incidents before her coffee got cold. After I explained my situation, she gave me a phone number and instructions that made me feel like I was being inducted into some kind of bureaucratic secret society.

"Call this number," she said. "They'll help you locate the passport holder. And thank you for being a good citizen."

A good citizen. I liked the sound of that.

Finding the guy took three phone calls and about forty-five minutes of being transferred between departments that seemed to exist solely to transfer people to other departments. Finally, I reached a woman who sounded like she'd been personally trained by the embassy official.

"Oh yes," she said when I read her the passport information, "Mr. Volkov. He's been calling us frantically for two days. Let me give you his number."

When I called Mr. Volkov, he answered on the first ring with the kind of desperate "Hello?" that suggested he'd been treating every phone call like a potential lifeline.

"I found your passport," I said, and I swear I could hear him collapse with relief through the phone.

"Oh my God, oh my God, where? How? I am supposed to fly tomorrow, I thought I would have to—you are angel, you are absolute angel!"

His English was enthusiastic if not perfect, and his gratitude was so effusive that I started to feel genuinely heroic. This was it—this was my moment of recognition, my dinner-on-the-house, my standing ovation for basic human decency.

We arranged to meet at a coffee shop equidistant from both our locations, which made me feel very sophisticated and international, like I was conducting some kind of diplomatic exchange.

I spent the rest of the afternoon fantasizing about what Mr. Volkov might do to express his gratitude. Maybe he'd insist on buying me coffee. Maybe he'd tell me about his travels, share photos of European architecture and exotic foods. Maybe he'd offer to send me postcards from whatever fabulous destination he was rushing off to catch.

I started composing the story I'd tell at dinner parties: "Well, it's funny you should ask about acts of kindness, because just last week I reunited a stranded traveler with his passport..." I'd be modest about it, of course, but I'd let the heroism speak for itself.

By the time I arrived at the coffee shop, I'd mentally rehearsed my gracious acceptance of his inevitable offer to pay for my therapy session as a thank-you gesture.

Mr. Volkov turned out to be exactly what his passport photo had promised: a tired-looking man in his fifties who seemed to be carrying the weight of several missed flights and at least one international incident. He'd brought backup—a woman who introduced herself as his wife and appeared to be the kind of person who kept their family's important documents in a waterproof, fireproof, probably nuclear-blast-proof container.

"You found passport!" he exclaimed, reaching for the soggy document like it was a long-lost relative. "I cannot believe—I looked everywhere, I called police, I called embassy, I wrote five emails to airline..."

He trailed off as he examined the passport, checking to make sure all the important bits were still legible.

"Thank you," he said finally, tucking the passport into what appeared to be a backup travel document holder. "This is very good of you."

And then... nothing.

No offer of coffee. No insistence that I accept some small token of appreciation. No exchange of contact information so he could send me updates on his travels. He simply stood up, shook my hand with the brisk efficiency of people who had flights to catch, and walked away.

I sat in the coffee shop for another twenty minutes, partly because I'd already paid for parking and partly because I couldn't quite believe that was it. I'd orchestrated an international rescue mission, navigated bureaucratic phone trees, and successfully reunited a man with his ability to travel freely across international borders.

And nothing happened.

That evening, I told my husband about my adventure over dinner. He listened with the kind of patient attention he reserves for stories about my therapy sessions and my theories about why the grocery store keeps rearranging the produce section.

"So he didn't even buy you a coffee?" he asked when I finished.

"Not even a coffee," I confirmed. "He just took the passport and left. Like I was some kind of... passport-returning service."

My husband nodded knowingly. "Welcome to the club," he said. "Population: you, me, and probably every other person who's ever done the right thing without a camera crew present."

I looked at him across the table, this man who'd saved a choking stranger and spent twenty years trying to make me remember a joke that probably wasn't funny in the first place. This man who'd performed the Heimlich maneuver on two separate occasions and received a grand total of zero thank-you cards.

"Do you think we're doing it wrong?" I asked. "Should we be more strategic about our good deeds? Maybe carry business cards that say 'Professional Life Saver' or 'International Document Recovery Specialist'?"

"Probably," he said. "Or we could just accept that sometimes being a decent human being is its own reward."

I considered this for a moment. "That's a terrible reward," I said finally. "I want a better one."

He laughed—the same laugh he'd been trying to recreate for twenty years, the one that had nearly killed me with lobster. "You know what?" he said. "I think I finally remember that joke."

"Don't you dare," I warned him. "Some things are better left forgotten."

But I was smiling when I said it, because sometimes the best reward for saving someone's life—or passport—is just having someone around who understands that heroism is mostly thankless, occasionally ridiculous, and almost always worth doing anyway.

Even if nobody applauds.

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