This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
I’m a little sad to be writing this but its come to that point. I have to leave the Scientific American network. I haven’t been asked to leave (as I thought I would) or lost interest in blogging, I just simply can not dedicate the time to do it properly and to a standard that I set for myself, so I am taking a break.
I have been blogging (almost) every week since 2009 in various places and during that time I have been doing a PhD, getting jobs, getting married and now starting a family.
Now that I have to finish my PhD thesis, while holding down a full time job, before I become a father in a few months it has become apparent that there is simply not enough hours in the day to dedicate to all my projects so job, thesis and baby round out the top three and until one of them gives I’m stuck.
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It is with great sadness (tinged with excitement and the good kind of terror) that I leave Scientific American and the amazing line up of bloggers I still struggle to understand how I was counted among. It has been an amazing opportunity to write for and work with such a big name in popular science communication and I feel I am a better communicator for it.
I have a few big thank you’s to make if you will indulge me.
First to Bora, thank you for seeing something in my first blogs and encouraging me to first submit to the guest blog then to move to Scientific American. I was pretty sure I couldn’t do it but you convinced me otherwise and I have had a ball being part of the network.
To the other bloggers on the network, thanks for making me feel part of a community. Even writing from a different hemisphere didn’t stop me from feeling included and befriended by all at SciAm blogs and I will continue to read all of your amazing work.
A huge thanks to anyone who considers themselves a fan of the blog. I don’t know if there are many (or any) but I always imagined there were one or two of you lurking out there and I hope you enjoyed the words. I only ever wrote for me, I find it cathartic somehow, but if anyone else has gotten something out of it then I am glad.
Finally the biggest thanks has to go to my (long suffering) wife.:)
She has supported my writing since the beginning and has often brought me food while I stay up late to write something, read drafts, unplugged writers blocks and generally made the process much easier. An amazing woman who enables my flights of fancy and endeavours that often cost more money than they make and steal away too much of my attention than they should.
And that’s it for me here, at least for the foreseeable future. I believe my posts will remain in my absence but if not feel free to contact me on twitter and I am happy to chat about the things I have written and almost anything else. I will still post interesting links to things in the 'fan' page that was set up years ago and I am playing around on Quora which I find to very fun at the moment.
By no means is this the end of my blogging, I have a few ideas in the pipeline and I will continue writing in a few other places under pseudonyms when I can.
It’s been great fun and I hope I leave Scientific American (and the ‘blogosphere’ more generally) more disease prone than when I got here.
Regards,
James Byrne.