Without further ado….

Batters up for 2008 in the ‘avec’ group:

Kami

Martha

Chili

Kandace

Delenn

Babysteps

Kristen

Mel

Nancy

Alison

Lori

Wordgirl

Dilasari

MrsSpock

Calliope

Katie

Jen

Serenity

Artblog

Maresi

Korechronicles

And, obviously, myself…..

And, batters up for the clever ladies of ’sans’:

Babysmiling

Willow

Phoebe

Sarah

Keiyou

Spirit

Sam

Jenedis

Mrs Spit

GreenEggsNHam

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

 

No, really, it is.

It’s time to begin taking names for the Great Blog Cross-Pollination, again. Not sure what I’m talking about?

Here is a link to last year’s event (also accessible by clicking on the bee icon on my left sidebar), and now I shall explain how it goes for those of you toying with the idea of participating this year. 

Ha Hem. (draws breath in, and puts on best Offical Voice…and then wildly flails around her blog for the explanation she typed twelve months ago). Ah, got it:

I blame Mel’s (of Stirrup Queens fame) phenomenal organisation of so many damn fun bloggity events for giving me ideas.

Well, actually only ONE idea, I lack imagination.

Admittedly, a slightly grandiose idea, quite possibly above my station in the blogosphere as a persistently jacked off, disgruntled, whining infertile who shouldn’t complain so much now she has her much sought after you-know-whats. I only hope I can get away with it.

You see, it’s all about my needs at Chez MII, as per usual.

Inspiration (or possibly denial of my need to ever sleep) has hit and I’ve begun to entertain the crazy thought that maybe I could get off my lazy butt and organise a little something myself. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

Don’t answer that.

Hoping desperately that I’m not about to bite of more than I can comfortably chew and offend you all with my devastating inefficiency, let me share my Cunning Plan.

Drum-roll, please…..

The Great Blog Cross-Pollination.

See, isn’t it just fantastic?

I bet you’re all inspired, yes?

No?

Oh.

Then let me explain my Cunning Plan.

This all comes from the observation that, out of the zillions of fantastic blogs you all write, I only know and regularly visit a subset.

I’d like to get to know more of you, after all a girl can never have too many fellow ALI’ers to bitch to about recalcitrant reproductive systems.

I am aware that clicking though blogrolls would achieve the same end, but the way I propose would be more fun.

The executive summary?

Essentially, the net effect for those who participate would be that on a nominated date (Sunday the 9th of November), instead of your own usual post, you swap posts with another blogger.

This would all be clearly signposted in the title that the post is ‘guest’ , of course, and with a hyperlink to your own post, existing as a ‘guest’ post on the swapped-blog site. 

The goal is cross-pollination of bloggity goodness.

Visitors to your site get to visit another (hopefully fresh and new) blog without even the bother of all that clicking their mouse, let alone typing a URL. Nifty, huh?

As an added bonus, they can have the fun of guessing the identity of the mystery guest blogger is in the comments section.

I wonder how many of us will pick a familiar writing style in a new home?

If you’re frowning in confusion, let me break it down as to how it will work:

• Firstly, those who’d like to join in post a comment to this post with their name, blog URL and email address. Also add if your blog is avec or sans Rugrats (children/pregnancy) so I can match up kid-kid and non-kid-non-kid blogs. I don’t want to offend any sensibilities.

 

• Secondly, I will compile the list of participants and email you (in about a week or so) with the name, email address and url of your matched blog cross-pollinator. This gives you a couple of weeks to dream up that awesome post you’ve always wanted to get out of your system.

 

• You then both compose your post for the date (Sunday the 9th of November) and email each other the post text, or, ideally the code for the post text also ideally in the week before the Big Day, so everyone has their post on time to publish it.

You can access the code for your post in most blog programs by clicking on the ‘view html’ or ‘code’ tab (to give Blogger and WordPress examples, respectively). Copy that and email it if you can.

I’ve tested emailing code between Blogger and WordPress and it seems to work. If finding the code is too tricky for you, simply compose your post in your usual blog program and copy it into your email and send it. That should also work okay, if my experiments are to be trusted.

Just please, please, please don’t use MS word to type your post as it seems to create an ungodly amount of irrelevant tags that will have your cross-poster cursing your name if one breaks.

• On the Cross pollination date (Sunday the 9th of November, if you’re not keeping track), post the swapped post you received via email with the following additions:

 

• The title ‘A guest blog entry, bought to you by the Great Blog Cross-Pollination’.

 

• A request at the bottom of the post to guess the identity of the cross-pollinated blogger in the comments field and a link to their blog URL (obviously entitled ‘click here’ or somesuch rather than just listing the url. THAT would make it rather too easy to guess) to find your post for the day. That way your regular readers can find you, even if it’s not your usual location.

That’s it. I hope I just made sense.

Voila, Blog cross pollination.

If you’re feeling all snazzy, also feel free to lift/upload the file for the bumblebee-flower logo above to stick on your site and link this post to it. Not sure how to insert/link a sidebar icon? Just tell me in your comment below and I’ll email you platform-specific help.

So, what are you waiting for?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………