DP&L Episode 256: Keep an Origin Story of Your Writing
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
Release Date: 11/29/2025
DP&L Episode 273: How Long Does It Take You to Start Writing in a Session?
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 273, host Christine Tulley looks at how long it really takes to start writing—and why it matters. She tracked her own startup time over four days. After a multi-day break, it took about 15 minutes to get back in. She reread five pages and made notes. On back-to-back days, it took as little as 2 minutes. What made the difference? Simple strategies like leaving her document open, using Word's "pick up where you left off" feature, and jotting a page number on a sticky note. Her big takeaway: track your own ramp-up time. Be honest. Some people need 30 minutes to settle in. That time...
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DP&L Episode 272: Choosing a University Press for Your Work
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In this episode Christine Tulley guides academic authors through the process of selecting the right university press for their work, a high-stakes decision particularly for tenure-track faculty at research institutions. She walks through key strategies: using the Association of University Presses' subject grid (available in Excel or PDF) to identify presses active in your field, visiting press websites to assess the fit of their current lists, sending brief author query emails to gauge interest, and evaluating a press's output volume and consistency as indicators of its health and...
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DP&L Episode 271: The Next 30 Days
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 271 of Defend, Publish, and Lead, host and executive writing coach Christine Tulley shares a practical productivity strategy she calls the "Next 30 Days" plan, designed to help academics avoid the common springtime trap of giving up or procrastinating as the semester winds down. Drawing from her own schedule — which includes two workshops, a final book manuscript due April 7th, and limited working days due to travel and holidays — she walks listeners through how to audit their upcoming 30 days by identifying hard deadlines, mapping out available work blocks, ruthlessly...
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DP&L Episode 270: Dissertation Rescue
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 270, Christine Tulley describes dissertation support efforts at Defend, Publish and Lead this month. Resources Mentioned Sign up for our free Dissertation Rescue sessions on Sign up for a free writing coach hour to support your dissertation or dissertation writers at christine@defendpublishlead.com Check out our playlists DPL Resources Tuesday Toolbox - contact christine@defendpublishandlead.com for subscription information to get more videos like Lesson 13 Set your writing goals with us! Try us out in a free consultation. Check out our current and past...
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DP&L Episode 269: Four Reasons Your Dissertation is a Mess (Big Things)
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 269, Christine Tulley walks through all four “big picture” problems that might cause a dissertation to be derailed. Episode Resources Sign up for our free Dissertation Rescue sessions on Consider attending this year’s DPL Resources Tuesday Toolbox - contact christine@defendpublishandlead.com for subscription information to get more videos like Lesson 13 Set your writing goals with us! Try us out in a free consultation. Check out our current and past workshops at Eventbrite for writing support content. A FREE webinar is posted each month. Missed a workshop?...
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DP&L Episode 268: REMIX Make Writing an Event
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In this remix of an earlier episode, Christine Tulley invites you to start thinking about writing as an event—something you actually look forward to rather than squeeze in between everything else. She shares how she treats her writing sessions like a “hot date,” complete with a fancy coffee, a favorite playlist, and a trip to the library to get into the right mindset. Even when writing at home, she recreates that sense of occasion with small rituals—special drinks, lo-fi music, a quick walk, or a few minutes of freewriting—to signal that it’s time to focus. The key is building...
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DP&L Episode 267: Faculty Writers Need Love
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 266, Christine Tulley walks through ways faculty developers can show faculty writers some love including programming, resources, and support strategies and how faculty writers can support themselves with free resources and writing organizations. Resources Mentioned: Get a free past webinar on us! Select PAST to view all of and select one. Email to let her know and the recording for both past free or paid events will be sent to you. “.” By Jennifer Ahern-Dodson and Christine Tulley DPL Resources: Tuesday Toolbox - contact...
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DP&L Episode 266: Book Completion Battle Plan!
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 266, Christine Tulley walks through the process of creating a "book completion battle plan" when facing a tight deadline, sharing her real-time approach to finishing a book manuscript due March 1st with only 23 days remaining. She demonstrates how to audit your available time by identifying writing days versus non-writing days, distinguishing between "big block days" (2+ hours), smaller writing blocks (45-90 minutes), and brief time fragments, explaining that she has 15 realistic writing days to complete 15,000-25,000 words at approximately 1,600 words per day. Tulley emphasizes...
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DP&L Episode 265: Do One Paragraph
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 265, Christine Tulley offers practical advice for overwhelmed academic writers on how to make progress when time is limited by focusing on completing just one paragraph. She explains that paragraphs can serve various purposes—proposing new frameworks, introducing evidence, synthesizing literature, or challenging established views—and that working on a single paragraph is a manageable, non-threatening way to advance your writing even in small fragments of time. Tulley emphasizes that paragraphs have singular goals and typically take less than a full page, making them ideal units...
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DP&L Episode 264: Time Blocking Alternatives
Defend, Publish & Lead Podcast
In Episode 264, Christine Tulley explores alternatives to traditional time blocking for academic writers who struggle with scheduling designated writing periods. While acknowledging that time blocking works for some people, she presents three alternative approaches: dedicating entire days to writing rather than small time slots, blocking time for specific tasks instead of general "writing hours," and using a flexible weekly range system where writers set a minimum and maximum number of hours to complete each week without assigning them to specific times. Tulley emphasizes that traditional time...
info_outlineChristine Tulley, President and Executive Writing Coach, explores the concept of maintaining an "origin story" for academic writing projects in the context of surveillance, power dynamics, and emerging technologies—the theme of the 2025 Big Rhetorical Podcast Carnival. She examines how various stakeholders (universities, publishers, plagiarism detection software, AI tools, and tenure committees) have claims to or surveillance over faculty writing, raising questions about ownership and originality. Tulley offers four practical strategies for documenting the development of writing projects: maintaining dated drafts, using version control systems like GitHub, creating process documentation through blogs or social media, and sharing work-in-progress through conference presentations and public scholarship venues. She emphasizes the importance of tools like ORCID IDs for tracking authorship and highlights the Textbook and Academic Authors Association's upcoming webinar about claiming damages in the lawsuit against Anthropic for unauthorized use of academic work by AI tools, framing documentation of writing origins as both a protective measure and a meaningful way to capture the creative process.
The Big Rhetorical Podcast Past Carnival Episodes
- Episode 199: Civil and Collegial Scholarship
- Episode 138: AI and Scholarly Writing Support
- Episode 33: Scholarly Responsibility and Misinformation
Resources Mentioned:
- The Big Rhetorical Podcast
- Maintaining Writing Momentum in December (December 1st annual webinar)
Resources:
- HOLIDAY COACHING HOURS - All hours at lowest prices for the year
- Tuesday Toolbox - contact christine@defendpublishandlead.com for subscription information
- Set your writing goals with us! Try us out in a free consultation.
- Check out our current and past workshops at Eventbrite for writing support content. A FREE webinar is posted each month. Missed a workshop? Request a workshop or webinar recording from christine@defendandpublish.com
- Don't forget about the wonderful resources at Textbook and Academic Authors Association. The organization can be found at: https://www.taaonline.net
- New to TAA? Join for just $25 using discount code DP25! You will also receive a copy of the eBook, Guide to Making Time to Write: 100+ Time & Productivity Management Tips for Textbook and Academic Authors.