Friends, loyal countrymen/women, Alliteratus, lend me your ears

You may have noticed that we haven't updated in a while. In fact, on April 2nd I said to come back in two weeks. It's, uh, been a few more weeks than that, and we're not here.

Nor will we be, for the foreseeable future, I'm afraid.

You are witnessing the death of a blog. A much beloved, much belabored blog.

Each of us have loved the Archives in our own ways, and each and every one of you for reading it, but we all agree on one thing:

It's become a chore.

So, no more excuses. No more "we'll be back in ____" and then multiplying ____ by 10. The only thing worse than not blogging at all is blogging poorly.

Plus, we kind of hate the word "blog". Or at least, I do.

Anyway, my friends, while it pains me to say this, the Archives are about to become just that-- shadowy echoes of former selves and lives; a warehouse full of cobwebby thoughts. We may come back someday with a broom and sweep out the attic and dust off a shiny new post, or we may not. We all agree we don't want to make any promises. We don't want to disappoint you anymore.

But! We're still here! We still exist! We still want to hang out and chat! So come find us in our other spaces, where we clean regularly and post more sporadically-often.

You can find me (L.T. Host) at my other blog, updated almost never but a slow simmer in my mind always, with the intent to thrive again:

 My Life is (in) a Zoo

Or on Twitter, as @LTHost .

And I hope you will, and actually talk to me because I'm horrible about starting conversations I always think I'm not cool enough for people so feel free to break the ice first I promise I won't bite. Phew.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for being you.

I'll try and get the rest of the Alliterators to post their preferred contact info here, too. But no promises. We're really bad at keeping those.

Good night, sweet blog. Good night.

SPRING BREAK!!!! WOOO!!!!!

Uh, we're on Spring Break, folks.

Come back in two weeks. :)

Pretending January didn't exist, and introducing: Theme Weeks!

January was a rough month for me. In the last thirty days, I have:

-Had a muscle spasm in my back. I couldn't turn my head for three days.

-Had my cat drop a laptop on my toes. It landed on its edge, by the way.

-Went to the more-than-urgent-care-but-not-quite-ER for some scary chest pains (apparently, the cartilage between your rib cage and sternum can swell and make you think you're having a heart attack. Who knew?)

-Gotten an interview for my DREAM-dream job.

-Not gotten my DREAM-dream job.

-Gotten food poisoning. Twice.

-Entered a much-beloved but long-shelved manuscript in a contest.

-Gotten a reprieve for a close animal friend at work

-Lost my close animal friend after all

-And jumped back into the query pool, feet first, eyes closed.

Having shown you this, dear friends, I hope you can understand exactly why the Archives have been a little delayed thus far this year. I don't really have an opinion on the whole "The world is ending in 2012!!" thing, but I have to say that I certainly hope it's just getting all the challenging/ difficult bits out of the way right off the bat. With that optimism in mind, I want to introduce you to two new concepts we're going to try out here at the Archives, hoping to advance our way further into the blogging world and interact with you all in a real-time, digital megaspace reality that's sure to innovate our fluxative capacity. (Okay, so that was actually my attempt at shoving as much nonsense jargon as I could into that sentence).

Our two new concepts?

The first:

NO WRITING ABOUT WRITING. (Well, except maybe a little).

Frankly, we're all sick of writing about writing. And I know I'm sick of READING about writing. I'd rather be writing! So while our blog will stay topical, and while we are still writers, we hope to include a lot more of ourselves in our blog posts, and a lot less of . . . well, you know.

And the second:

INTRODUCING: THEME WEEKS!!

You guys, I don't know if you've noticed, but it's HARD coming up with ideas for blog posts. Some weeks, we just give up out of sheer lack of motivation. Others, the well simply runneth dry. So we're going to try something new and fantastic: giving ourselves a theme to write to. Each week will have a theme, and you will get five different points of view about the topic at hand. We've already got a bunch of ideas, but if there's something you want to hear our thoughts on, leave it in the comments of this post!

Now, having waded through all of THAT business, we can move onto, er, business. This week's theme?

A wishlist.

It's been a new year twice now since the last time we really, really posted, and I'd like to celebrate and hallow the start of two new years by sending some wishes out into the universe. I'm genuinely hoping for some good things to happen this year! Here's my wishlist:

-Get another interview for my dream-dream job. Don't suck at it. Get the job.

-Have some small (or large) writing success-- find an agent, write another story that I can't stop thinking about, get past the first round in that contest.

-Continue to grow as a better friend, wife, relative, blogger, writer, critter mom, and employee.

-Get my gorgeous loveable stubborn spooky horse down to the Big Arena-- and ride her there. Safely.

-Learn. Learn more. Learn everything. Find more to learn once I've learned everything.

-Spend quality time with wallabies at least twice a month. (I'm happy to report that my profound love of wallabies can at last be satisfied on a weekly basis! And guess what: they're WAY softer and fuzzier than they look!)

-And while we're at it, I'm just going to go ahead and ask the universe to help me out a little financially.

Now, universe, I don't want any of these to be Backhanded Wishes. No killing anyone or anything or ruining lives to make it happen, ya hear?

Do you have a wishlist for 2012?

Erm, Maybe

So I may have lied. We're trying to come up with some new ideas for this here blog business, and as a result will need another week, folks! Maybe two. I'll keep you posted.

Hope everyone has a glorious, success-filled New Year!

Excited Excited Excited

There's a lot going on at Casa L.T., folks. Man.

Right now I'm all hopped up on lemonade and Ben and Jerry's. Otherwise I'd be a melty puddle of anxious. There's so much coming up this week that I can't even seem to think straight, which is awesome, because I only have twenty kids I need to herd around a 900-acre zoo for seven hours a day.

But I'm actually ridiculously excited right now, aside from even the lemonade and ice cream. Why? Because we have two new writers joining us here at the Archives, of course! We will do their official introduction soon, but right now let's just say... you will LOVE them. Also, in case you hadn't noticed, K.M. Criddle gave us a brand-spankin' new look that's pretty sharp, if I say so myself. And we've got PLANS for the future. PLANS, I tell you!

All in all, things are looking pretty up-and-up around here! Stay tuned, Alliterati, and thanks so much for sticking with us through this bumpy ride called... life. Or something like that.

Blogs are awesome! And a hearty "Stay Tuned!"

::peeks out from behind wall of blerg::

Hi? Hi, anyone there? Better yet, anyone had a free 12 hours and a new brain that I can borrow?

This post comes to you after a beautiful wedding (in which my husband, daughter and I all got food poisoning), a 5:30 am flight (that we had to wake up at 2:30 am to catch...and was subsequently delayed for half the morning), a missing pacifier (that had my daughter screaming for two straight hours at the airport) and a lost bottle (see previous).

So Friday and I are not partying today. Partying, partying NO.

BUT! Great changes are afoot at the Archives of the Alliterati! We got new bloggers joining us, new designs, themes and contests coming up next week. Survive the weekend with me and STAY TUNED for some great things!

In the meantime, tell me: what do you look for most when surfing about the world of writing blogs? Contests? Humor? Friendship? Critiques and camaraderie? Huge piles of chocolate and cash? An particular blogs (besides ours BWA HA HA) that are particular favorites of yours? Please share AND pimp out your own blog! I DEMAND SELF PROMOTION HERE, PEOPLE.

Good News, Everyone!

I'm delighted to announce that we will have a new Thursday contributor starting next week. She's resourceful, hilarious, and all-around awesome. She's a new mom, and a children's/YA writer repped by Nathan Bransford himself. She has also invented a new form of blogging that she affectionately refers to as "drawgs."

Just in case you haven't guessed it yet, our new Thursday contributor is K. Marie Criddle of C'MERE.

Everyone be sure to give her a warm welcome and look for her inaugural post next week!

Looking for something else to do during the week? Boy have we got the opportunity for you!

So first, some bad news:

Ms. Stephanie Thornton and Mr. Bane of Anubis have elected to step down from their regular weekly contributions to the Archives. While we are sad to see them go, Mr. Delman and I are pushing forward and continuing the blog because we think we have something special here to share with you.

And now, the good news:

What this means is that we need two more regular weekly contributors! If you think you might be interested, email us at alliteratiarchives@gmail.com with why you think you'd be a good fit.

And as usual, if you want to do a guest post on a Friday, let us know!

Thanks for sticking around Alliteratus. Stick with us during this period of turmoil-- we promise there are neat things in store!

Post Coming Forthwith

Sorry folks; today's post is running a wee bit behind. Check back in 2-3 hours and it will up and running.