It is tough work to maintain a blog. With almost three years’ experience of writing and reading blogs, my formula for success contains three essential elements. When one of these elements is missing, I feel the quality of the site reduces.

TIME + THOUGHT + DEDICATION = INTERESTING BLOG

Unfortunately, that is what happened to Science Calling over the past six months as I haven’t had any time to write the many posts floating about in my head. Even during Science Week, this blog lay empty… which is a terrible thing for a science blog to do!

At the start of every year since I set up this blog, I set aside some time to think about new ideas for the coming months. In 2012, I trialled a guest opinion series while last year I focused on science policy and emerging writers. This year, I’ve made the difficult decision to take a break from Science Calling for 2014.

It is down to your support and the blog’s success that I no longer have the time to maintain it to the quality I would like. My time is taken up with paid journalism and writing work as well as my ever-looming thesis deadline. Thank you so much for reading Science Calling and encouraging me to follow this exciting new career path. (cliché warning) It has changed my life.

Keep in touch with my exploits @mhdelaney or on my new portfolio site, mhdelaney.com. I’ll also keep my other social media accounts up to date with published articles and any work I complete.

It has been an amazing journey since June 2011 and I don’t want to say it’s over yet. See you here in January 2015!

GO SCIENCE!!