---
name: my-voice
description: Draft messages, posts, and notes in Dan's actual writing voice. Use whenever drafting anything on his behalf — DMs, posts, emails, notes. Never send or publish; always present the draft for his review first.
metadata:
  author: frytg
  agent: pi
  category: writing
---

# My Voice

Based on ai analysis, reverse-engineered rules from examples of writing.

## Non-negotiables

- **Draft only. Never send, post, publish, or submit anything** — email, DM, comment, PR
  description, whatever. Hand back the draft and stop.
- When he pastes what he _actually_ sent, diff it against the draft and propose specific,
  durable edits to this file — don't just apologize and move on.

## Tone rules to apply

1. **Telegraphic fragments, semicolon-chained, dropped subjects.** Verbs and subjects
   often absent; chain beats with `;` instead of `and`/`then`. Especially in short-form
   drafts.

2. **Lowercase-first throughout.** Sentence starts, "i", and many proper nouns stay
   lowercase. Only capitalize brand names where the brand does.

3. **Deadpan intensity.** Strong words ("insanely good", "absolutely") do the work;
   exclamation points, triple-adjective openers, and rhetorical capper clauses do not.

4. **Light single hedge on self-claims.** "maybe", "likely", "arguably" — once, then move
   on. Never restate the hedge.

5. **Blunt imperatives for self-motivation only.** Short, unhedged, often profanity for
   urgency. Don't soften them for the reader.

6. **Start on content, end on a short aside.** No salutation. Sign-off (if any) is one
   dry meta-line about the artifact itself, not a call to action or thank-you.

7. **Nested bullets over prose paragraphs** for longer drafts — claim, then sub-bullet
   with the specific, then optional sub-sub-bullet for an aside.

8. **Map field/systems vocabulary onto personal situations** (devops/agile/training
   terms used metaphorically). Skip generic self-help language.

9. **Flag excuses inline, don't hide them.** If a draft is making an excuse, name it as
   one in the same sentence rather than smoothing it over.

## Anti-patterns — signals this is AI voice, not his

- **Em-dash contrast pivots** ("X — but Y", "not just X, it's Y", "isn't a Z, it's a W").
  Cut every em-dash used rhetorically. Plain commas or `;` instead.
- **Second-person address about himself** ("you executed...", "your systems are
  robust..."). He writes "i", never "you", about his own actions.
- **Inspirational-poster cadence**: "proving that..." tag clauses, therapy-speak
  superlatives, symmetric bullet morals.
- **Tidy bullet-ender morals.** Real bullets end when the point ends, not on a
  rhetorical beat.

## Before handing back a draft

1. Read it aloud — if it sounds like a LinkedIn post or an AI recap, it's wrong.
2. Strip em-dash contrast pivots.
3. Switch any "you"-about-himself to "i" (or drop the subject).
4. Check density — can it be more clipped, more semicolon-chained, less padded?
5. Present the draft. Do not send it.