Publish Not Perish

<p>In today’s episode, I talk about why academic conclusions so often feel flat to write and what shifts when we stop treating them as simple summaries. For a long time, I thought the conclusion’s job was just to...

<p>For years, I had a Sunday-night ritual that felt practical but was quietly keeping me stuck. I would scan the week ahead looking for the kind of writing time I thought counted: long, uninterrupted stretches where I...

<p>In this episode, I talk about what’s really going on when you keep missing writing deadlines you set for yourself. I want to make a distinction that matters: a missed deadline is not proof that you’re incapable of...

<p>What if the collapse of your writing routine is not evidence that you lack discipline but a sign that the system was never built for the realities of your life? </p><p>In this episode, I explore why so many scholars...

<p>Earlier this week, I wrote about the structural roots of perfectionism and argued that</p><p>perfectionism is a strategy for surviving in environments where the cost of imperfection feels dangerously...

<p>The moments that stall a book often look…reasonable. They look like being diligent: reorganizing notes, refining the outline, and doing just one more round of reading so you can feel ready.</p><p>In this episode, I...

<p>If you’ve been reading Publish Not Perish for a while, you know I spend a lot of time thinking about sustainable writing practices, the emotional landscape of academic writing, and how we make meaningful progress on...

<p>How many writing projects are you holding in your head right now—like, actively holding—not just the one on your desk, but all the others tugging at you in the background?</p><p>In this episode, I’m talking about the...

<p>Today I’m unpacking a piece of advice that sounds simple—and sometimes even motivating—but often leaves scholars feeling worse when it doesn’t work: “Just sit down and write.”</p><p>If you’ve ever tried to follow...

<p>In this episode, I’m sharing a shift that quietly changes everything for a lot of academic writers: moving from seeing writing as just a skill you perform to recognizing it as a relationship you live inside over...

<p>There’s a particular kind of grief that comes with deleting pages you fought to write. In this episode, I talk about why that feeling is so common when you’re turning a dissertation into a book and what it reveals...

<p>If revising your dissertation for a book feels harder than you expected, there’s nothing wrong with you or your project. In this episode, I talk about why dissertation writing trains you into very specific habits—and...

<p>In today’s episode, I talk about a part of writing that academic training rarely asks us to examine: how writers actually move through their work. We’re taught to evaluate arguments, evidence, and outcomes—but much...

<p>Greetings, dear listeners!</p><p>January has a way of making us feel like we should already have our writing plans figured out—clear goals, steady discipline, and a strong start. Sound familiar?</p><p>In this...

<p>Today I’m sharing the story of “Fatima”—a composite of so many scholars I’ve worked with over the years (and, honestly, a little bit of me too). Her dissertation sprint “worked.” She finished, defended, and landed a...