Hiatuses are obviously there for a reason. 

Authors can not update for personal reasons and so on, be it school or just a really terrible time in their life.

Before I used to get annoyed that Authors would take long breaks from writing and I would just forget the story line completely if it was long enough.

However, we must remember that most authors on AFF are writing a work in progress.

It's like a draft. Authors in the world out there who are published don't just write something and immediately sell them. They need to be editted, read by other to catch mistakes, to check if there are plot holes and to check if everything makes sense. 

So what authors are writing on AFF is this. We're all at this stage where we write, and edit and read over and over, until we are truly proud of the final product and unfortunately, that takes a while to do.