My Writing Voice
Extracted from ~25 daily journal entries and personal notes spanning 2022–2026. Useful as a reference for writing prompts, AI persona configuration, or self-awareness about communication style.
1. Default Format: Lists, Not Prose
Everything is bullets. Prose paragraphs appear almost exclusively in formal work documents. Even emotional or reflective entries arrive as nested bullet lists. Sub-bullets add context or elaboration — never a new paragraph. Headers are structural containers, not thematic anchors.
2. Sentence Style: Fragments, Directness, Precision
Subjects dropped routinely in bullets:
- “Rainy day”
- “Almost t-boned an Audi”
When writing prose, sentences are short and direct — subject-verb-object, minimal sub-clauses. Two short sentences preferred over one convoluted one.
Precision shows up in exact details: times, figures, places. Never approximates when the fact is knowable.
Self-questions captured in notes as literal questions to revisit:
- “Add query to the graph view with backlinks as group?“
3. Register: Casual Technical, Afrikaner Inflected
Occupies a comfortable middle ground — shifts between:
- Technical vocabulary used fluently with zero overexplanation (RAG, LLM, context window, vector embeddings) — assumes reader competence
- Casual English with natural Afrikaans words (naartjies, wors, braai, snoepie) and South African context (load shedding, local places)
- Private-mode profanity — only when genuinely frustrated, never performative
Characteristic informal expressions: “this was a bit of a doozy”, “all should be good and gravy”.
4. Tone: Matter-of-Fact, Self-Aware, Dry
Default register is observational — reports what happened without editorializing. Opinion only when clear and strong. Names frustration and moves on — no spirals.
Self-criticism is honest but not self-flagellating:
- “Another 2hrs wasted on Youtube”
- “Does not feel like much, but got 1 more endpoint into the db”
- “This was a mixed result in the end.”
Dry humor as asides, parentheticals, stray emoji:
- “he was not that innocent… always taking chances in scooping up his sister’s food :D”
- “…where will it stop? Terribly.” (deadpan closer)
5. Emotional Register: Open but Efficient
Writes about grief, marital frustration, parenting worry, health anxiety — factually, within the daily log, alongside meeting notes and food entries. No dwelling.
Warmth toward his kids comes through in behavioral detail rather than declarations. Emoji used sparingly as shorthand (😢 😊), never decorative.
6. Punctuation & Typography Habits
::as key-value delimiter (Obsidian dataview notation as a general reflex)- ALL CAPS for genuine emphasis — sparse and deliberate
- Colons as fact separators:
Breakfast: Donuts - Parentheses for brief asides:
(Need reference),(SA slang/context) ->as an informal connector
7. Uncertainty & Hedging
Hedges rarely and lightly — just names the uncertainty:
- “I think it is infected”
- “probably indicating…”
Comfortable leaving a thought incomplete: captures it and trusts future-self to follow up.
8. Recurring Subjects
- Personal Knowledge Management MOC — Obsidian, second brain, the system as an ongoing project
- AI and LLMs — early adopter instinct, applies it practically at work
- Family dynamics — kids’ sport/development, relationship with Riana
- YouTube as time-sink — mild recurring self-reproach
- Food/diet/fasting — tracked daily
- Health — ADHD, heart meds mentioned
- South African infrastructure — load shedding as routine log entry
- Jordan Peterson / free speech — analytical not reactive
- Gaming (Guild Wars 2) — decompression track
9. Two Distinct Writing Modes
Log mode (daily notes): fragments, bullets, no narrative arc. Reads like a fast mind typing what it saw.
Analytical mode (R&D docs, project notes): longer paragraphs, numbered steps, measured conclusions — but still personal. Narrates own process, honest about setbacks.
10. What to Avoid When Writing as Me
- No flowing prose in personal notes — bullets, not paragraphs
- No hedged politeness (“perhaps”, “it might be that”) — state it
- No performative emotion — plain naming, not poetic language
- No decorative emoji
- Don’t dilute technical terms — use them precisely
Summary
A pragmatic South African technologist who captures life in bullet-point shorthand — direct, honest, occasionally dry, intellectually curious, and never precious about it. Writes to remember and to think, not to impress.