the newsletter writing process, and what mine looks like

By 7:30am I’m back home in the bathtub with a book. (Currently A Little Life by Hanya Yanigahara.) Occasionally the epsom salt bath is followed by a cat nap but anxiety starts creeping in if I’m not at my desk by 9am.

Wednesday is my newsletter writing day, which takes two or three hours. It goes out the following Tuesday.

By this time I have an idea what to write about but it’s often flimsy. Writing the top box and sponsored links makes for a decent warmup.* Kind of like writing a sales page from the bottom and working your way up, starting at the FAQ, the “who is it for,” and the bonus stack. Knock out the easy bits first.

Newsletters never come out fully formed – except when they do which is a rare gift and only happens every few months. Usually, I have to fall down two or three rabbit holes before finding an angle that works.

There’s a “cutting room floor” at the bottom of my Google Doc—hat tip to Sage Polaris. The cutting room floor is where I drop all the bits I can’t use but don’t want to delete. A less violent way to kill your darlings. I almost never use them but I like knowing they’re there.

The hardest part of the email is segueing from the story to “here’s why you should care.” I could write hooks and stories all day long. It’s the area of my business where I am most prodigious, my superpower. But I would lose my readers fast if I weren’t able to turn a paddling story into something relevant for the 12,983 of my subscribers who signed up to learn about email.

Segues are hard when you don’t know what you’re segueing to. It’s embarrassing to admit but oftentimes I don’t.

(Check out this brilliant story segue by my friend Dylan Redekop on Linkedin).

I threw away an entire email last week because I couldn’t find the segue. This week I rescued it from the cutting room floor and turned it into a totally different email, the one you’re currently reading.

….which brings me to another point:

This newsletter is made orders-of-magnitude better by writing ahead of time.

The more time you can let your newsletter marinate, the better it gets.

Some of the work is sitting around thinking. Eating lunch and not watching TikToks. Walking around the block and not listening to an episode of If Books Could Kill. Chilling on the couch and not texting sexy pictures to your boyfriend.

All of that thinking time is the marinade on the steak that is your newsletter.

On Thursday I’ll pop back in and remove extra words, rewrite sentences that start with “I” so the email doesn’t read like someone’s diary, delete extraneous parentheticals (sometimes I just can’t help myself), or even pick up where I left off if I didn’t finish the day before, which happens. There are always bits I missed, like alt text or unmarked affiliate links, so I’ll clean those up too.

(Chances are you’re not lazy or uncaring if you miss those bits, you just need to give yourself more time, especially since tiny tasks require a different kind of energy.)

There’s always room for improvement on the subject lines.

A bad habit of mine is writing the subject lines last.** It’s hard to summon brilliance when I’m itching to tick off this task in Asana and be done with it. Your subject lines will always be stronger if you come back to the email the next day with a fresh set of eyes.

Endings are easy to get stuck on too.

You’ve shared an interesting hook, checked what’s in the fridge forty-five times, segued into something useful for your reader, and now it’s time to wrap your email in a pretty bow but you’re out of things to say.

That happens.

Now’s a good time to turn it over to your reader. What do they have to say on this topic? For example:

What does your newsletter writing process look like? How long does it take you to write an email? Do you write on a schedule, or when inspiration hits? What’s one takeaway from this email you want to try?

Hit “reply” and share.

I love getting a sneak peek into the lives of other writers.

Till next week,

Tarzan Kay [she/they]​ Did someone forward you this email? ​Subscribe here​. Follow me on ​LinkedIn​.

*Interested in buying ad space in this newsletter? Here’s some more info on sponsorship rates for EMAILS, BUT BETTER.

**That sentence was formerly, “I always write the subject line last, which is a bad habit.” This is what I mean by rewriting sentences so your emails don’t really like a diary.​