I write 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. (Find 
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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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