Publish Not Perish

What Lifting Heavy Things Taught Me About Writing | Ep. 39

In today’s episode, I’m reflecting on what a year of lifting heavy weights has taught me about writing. When I first started working with genuinely heavy weights, I realized that the hard part was not only physical. My brain often told me to stop before my body had actually reached its limit. That experience in the gym has an uncanny resemblance to the moment in writing when an argument gets difficult, the structure will not quite settle, and suddenly email, footnotes, or “just a little more reading” starts to look very appealing. I talk about the difference between real rest and avoidance and why both matter for academic writers. Rest is essential and it is part of how growth happens. But sometimes what looks like rest is actually a retreat from the intellectual discomfort that makes our work stronger. I also reflect on consistency, not as writing every day or meeting some punishing productivity standard, but as the practice of returning to the gym, to the page, and to the hard thing that slowly builds progress over time. All of this is to say that you can do hard things, and it is the act of doing those hard things that makes the magic happen. Related Content https://www.publishnotperish.net/p/writing-should-be-hard?utm_source=publication-search [https://www.publishnotperish.net/p/writing-should-be-hard?utm_source=publication-search] https://www.publishnotperish.net/p/sticking-with-your-writing-when-the?utm_source=publication-search [https://www.publishnotperish.net/p/sticking-with-your-writing-when-the?utm_source=publication-search] Get full access to Publish Not Perish at www.publishnotperish.net/subscribe [https://www.publishnotperish.net/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

You Don’t Have to Start with an Outline Either | Ep. 38

In my newsletter this week, I explained why I almost never start any sort of writing project with an outline. It’s simply because I’m much more of an explorer-writer than an architect-writer: I usually need to move through the material before I can see the structure. Architect-writers begin with the blueprint, the chapter map, and the planned sequence of ideas. Explorer-writers need to write fragments, follow associations, talk through examples, or spend time with one part of the project before the larger argument becomes visible. You can read more about the distinctions I’m making here: If you’re an explorer-writer too, common academic writing advice can make you feel like you’re doing everything wrong, especially when that advice begins and ends with “make an outline.” But struggling to outline at the beginning doesn’t necessarily mean you’re avoiding the work, lacking structure, or failing as a writer. It may mean that writing is how you discover the argument before you can organize it. In this episode, I discuss a method for still producing structured academic prose without beginning with an outline. Academic writing still needs to become generous to the reader. Your reader needs a path through the problem, the evidence, the intervention, and the stakes. But the process that helps you find the argument is not always the same as the structure that helps someone else follow it. So, I walk through a more useful process for explorer-writers: start where there is traction, write to discover, harvest what appears, cluster before sequencing, name the emerging argument, build the reader’s path, and use a reverse outline to refine the structure. You don’t have to begin as the architect. You can instead begin as the explorer, learning the shape of the terrain as you go. Get full access to Publish Not Perish at www.publishnotperish.net/subscribe [https://www.publishnotperish.net/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Why Saying No Still Feels Impossible After Tenure | Ep. 37

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been interrogating the hustle culture embedded in the sprint toward tenure and the broader culture of busyness in academia. You can access those posts here: Today’s episode asks what happens after the tenure sprint is supposedly over. The promise of tenure is that the pressure will ease, the finish line will hold, and a more spacious academic life will finally become possible. But for many scholars, the habits formed during the pre-tenure years do not simply disappear. When you spend years working inside ambiguity, trying to discern what will count as “enough,” overproduction can start to feel like the safest answer. Saying yes becomes more than a habit; it becomes part of how you prove you are serious, generous, collegial, and deserving. I also look at why advice about “just saying no” often misses the deeper problem. Not everyone has the same freedom to set boundaries without being judged, penalized, or read as insufficiently committed. Service, mentoring, diversity work, and emotional labor often fall unevenly on scholars whose belonging has already been made conditional. I want to hold both truths together: individual strategies for saying no can matter, especially as acts of self-preservation, but they are not enough on their own. The deeper work is building departments and institutions where labor is transparent, shared, and recognized and where exhaustion is no longer mistaken for commitment. Get full access to Publish Not Perish at www.publishnotperish.net/subscribe [https://www.publishnotperish.net/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Rethinking the Academic Conclusion | Ep. 36

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 restate what I had already said, and that made it feel tedious and lifeless. Here, I offer a different way of thinking about it: a strong conclusion doesn’t just summarize the manuscript. It synthesizes the argument, helps the reader see what the pieces add up to, and makes the stakes of the work clearer. I also explore how a conclusion can open outward without becoming inflated or vague. That might mean showing what your analysis lets us understand differently, clarifying the broader implications of your argument, or pointing toward questions that emerge from the work in an organic and grounded way. I share how writing the coda to my book helped me see conclusions differently, not as administrative cleanup, but as a genuine space for reflection, interpretation, and extension. If conclusions have felt dull, frustrating, or difficult to pin down, I hope this episode gives you a more interesting and more useful frame. Get the Support You Need to Write, Publish, and Flourish If you’re craving more support with your writing, here are a few ways we can work together: Writing Coaching [https://substack.com/redirect/23e7a3c0-0960-4f7e-8126-5f4d187c962b?j=eyJ1IjoiM3MxOXE1In0.K7HYXy4_5RiIZ7ESNcz1kyGRGjMdKgTa2kn9CBobmco]—For scholars who want structure, accountability, and a sustainable writing practice that actually works in real life. https://www.jennmcclearen.com/coaching [https://www.jennmcclearen.com/coaching] Developmental Editing [https://substack.com/redirect/ac93e96d-a057-415e-a30f-5628d6fe5363?j=eyJ1IjoiM3MxOXE1In0.K7HYXy4_5RiIZ7ESNcz1kyGRGjMdKgTa2kn9CBobmco]—When you need an expert pair of eyes on the argument, structure, or clarity of your manuscript. https://www.jennmcclearen.com/editing [https://www.jennmcclearen.com/editing] Book Coaching [https://substack.com/redirect/23218542-2b68-436c-beaa-578f2a5a8914?j=eyJ1IjoiM3MxOXE1In0.K7HYXy4_5RiIZ7ESNcz1kyGRGjMdKgTa2kn9CBobmco]—Six months of coaching + developmental editing to help you make meaningful progress on your manuscript. https://www.jennmcclearen.com/bookcoaching [https://www.jennmcclearen.com/bookcoaching]  Get full access to Publish Not Perish at www.publishnotperish.net/subscribe [https://www.publishnotperish.net/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

The Big Beautiful Block of Time Myth | Ep. 35

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 could really sink into the manuscript. Most weeks, those stretches were nowhere to be found, and I would close my planner already defeated. The myth that big blocks of writing time are the only way to move forward is alluring because most of us would prefer to work this way even if it doesn't fit into our schedules. In this episode, I talk about how that belief takes hold, why it’s normal to desire these blocks, and why it reflects a model of academic life that does not match the reality most scholars are living, especially those juggling teaching, service, caregiving, health concerns, and the constant interruptions of institutional life. I also make the case for a different way of thinking about writing time. Progress does not depend only on having more hours. It depends on matching the kind of time you have to the kind of task in front of you. Not every part of book writing requires the same level of focus or energy. Freewriting, outlining, revising, note-making, and drafting all ask different things of you, and some of them fit surprisingly well into smaller windows. When I stopped treating “working on the book” as one single activity, I could make meaningful progress in the time I actually had instead of dismissing it as insufficient. That shift changed more than productivity. It changed my relationship to the project itself. The book stopped feeling distant and accusing and started to feel like something I was genuinely in conversation with again. Get the Support You Need to Write, Publish, and Flourish If you’re craving more support with your writing, here are a few ways we can work together: Writing Coaching [https://substack.com/redirect/23e7a3c0-0960-4f7e-8126-5f4d187c962b?j=eyJ1IjoiM3MxOXE1In0.K7HYXy4_5RiIZ7ESNcz1kyGRGjMdKgTa2kn9CBobmco]—For scholars who want structure, accountability, and a sustainable writing practice that actually works in real life. https://www.jennmcclearen.com/coaching [https://www.jennmcclearen.com/coaching] Developmental Editing [https://substack.com/redirect/ac93e96d-a057-415e-a30f-5628d6fe5363?j=eyJ1IjoiM3MxOXE1In0.K7HYXy4_5RiIZ7ESNcz1kyGRGjMdKgTa2kn9CBobmco]—When you need an expert pair of eyes on the argument, structure, or clarity of your manuscript. https://www.jennmcclearen.com/editing [https://www.jennmcclearen.com/editing] Book Coaching [https://substack.com/redirect/23218542-2b68-436c-beaa-578f2a5a8914?j=eyJ1IjoiM3MxOXE1In0.K7HYXy4_5RiIZ7ESNcz1kyGRGjMdKgTa2kn9CBobmco]—Six months of coaching + developmental editing to help you make meaningful progress on your manuscript. https://www.jennmcclearen.com/bookcoaching [https://www.jennmcclearen.com/bookcoaching]  Get full access to Publish Not Perish at www.publishnotperish.net/subscribe [https://www.publishnotperish.net/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]