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dobbspic I write articles on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications, and am working on my fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion, which expands on my recent December 2009 Atlantic article. In August 2010, I'll be moving to London for a year to work on the book. I'll also serve as a senior fellow at City University London's MA science journalism program.

You're encouraged to check out my third book Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career; subscribe to Neuron Culture by email; see more of my work at my main website; or track Twitter feed, my Google Reader shared items, or my Tumblr log, which gets it all.

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    « Back Home from Seed's Scienceblogs -- or Why I Don't Blog More Often | Main | Pure Pedantry : Stress precedes volume reductions in the hippocampus in PTSD »

    Dished up by Andrew Sullivan: Blogging vs. Serious Writing

    Posted on: May 3, 2007 9:00 AM, by David Dobbs

    This makes me think of the old line about fading actors or writers when death brings them renewed attention: "Good career move." My post about leaving Seed's Scienceblogs and the conflict between blogging and more serious work got picked up and pondered by Andrew Sullivan at his Atlantic blogging home, as well as some other blogspots. Apparently this strikes a chord -- dissonant, and apparently in a minor key. It also shot my page-hits up to near-record highs; the only time I got more hits was when I wrote about sex. We won't explore here the possible links between writing about sex and getting written about by Andrew Sullivan ....

    I should note that Sullivan got one thing wrong, when he wrote that I was leaving the medium altogether; as my post said, I'm merely cutting back and changing venue. But Sullivan's post is interesting for his own thoughts on the difficulty of both blogging and book writing, which he says (and I agree) conflict not only in time demands but in mindset.

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    • Why Bloggers Blog, and Why SomeDont from Good Tithings
      Andrew Sullivan responds to David Dobbs quitting the Blogging Scene (hell still run his own smaller blog where he can blog less frequently, but hes quitting the act of daily blogging at Seed Sci Blog). Heres Dobbs: I say this recog... Read More
      Tracked on May 3, 2007 12:28 PM

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    1

    I gave up a blog I was writing. That was a few months ago. Staying away from blogging lasted about a week. I started a new blog, The Off the Fence Post. I post every day. You say a big reason for your pulling away is time. There isn't enough of it in your day. I'm semi-retired. Until March I worked part-time in a psychiatric group home. Twenty hours a week. My position was eliminated. The only ( real ) work I do now is teach a writing class once a week. I have LOTS of time to blog. Maybe bloging should be a requirement for those of us who have time on our hands. Maybe it should be a law. I'm kidding of course. But my ( unsolicited ) advice to those with time on their hands. Pick up where you left off. START a blog. There's no money in it, but, at least from my experience, there's some psychic income. You get to " meet " people. And you look at the world through new glasses.

    Posted by: Terrence McCarthy | May 3, 2007 9:12 AM

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