Looking for an Alternate for the Blogger Blitz Community Event!

Greetings, fight fans! I’ve got a situation and I’m gonna need some help. Last week I held the sign-ups for Blogger Blitz: Black Sheep, and I had a solid group of folks decide to join in the event. I prepared a cast list, wrote an article, and was all ready to announce the participants this morning. Unfortunately, a situation has come up for one of our original competitors and they are no longer able to participate in the event. We now have need for an eighth person to round out the competition and give us a full roster of fighters for the Blitz. So for one day only (hopefully!), I am opening the Blogger Blitz sign-ups once again in search of a single competitor to fill a spot on the bracket!

For those who may not know what the Blogger Blitz is all about, here are the details on being a competitor from the original sign-up post:

Here are the basics. Blogger Blitz is a single-elimination tournament where eight competitors will sponsor a character from a video game, specifically a villain. Black Sheep is all about the bad guys! These villains will then compete in wacky events, events that this year were designed based on suggestions from the adventurer community. After each match, a group of judges will converse together about which villain they believe earned the right to fight in the next leg of the competition. This will ultimately culminate in a championship match, where the winning villain will be crowned the Blogger Blitz champion and earn some sweet, sweet bragging rights.

Blogger Blitz: Black Sheep will be a single-elimination tournament with eight spots on the bracket, meaning we need eight competitors. As a competitor, you would choose a villain from a video game to submit as your character for the tournament. Characters are claimed on a first-come first-served basis, so be sure to check the sign-ups to make sure that someone before you hasn’t already chosen the villain you wanted. After that, I will hold a random drawing where fighters will be paired up for matches and the events they compete in will be decided.

You compete in a match by writing a blog post about how your villain would complete the event for that match. There is no required format, so go nuts – in the past we’ve had short stories, lists of pros and cons, and even songs submitted for the competition. I only have two rules: that your submission is written (this is a blogging contest, after all), and that you credit me as the creator of Blogger Blitz and link your opponent’s blog. Each round of the competition will have a word limit: round one will be 500 words, round two will be 800 words, and round three will be 1200 words. If you win your match, you go on to the next round. If you lose, you’re eliminated from the competition.

At maximum, as a competitor you will contribute three posts to the competition. You’ll always have a minimum of one week’s notice to have your next post scheduled, and last year I was pretty consistent about giving folks more like nine or ten days. Posts from competitors always go up on Mondays. These posts will be pretty spread apart with the only tight turnarounds being the transition from round one to round two, and the transition from round two to round three. That is to say, competitors who win matches get busier as the competition goes on. Ultimately, though, the role of competitor isn’t too time-intensive. You can do your part and then sit back and watch what’s going on with the rest of the competition. You might want to choose competitor if the following apply to you:

• I want to win the competition!
• I want to be involved but need some time between my contributions.
• I’m more interested in posting than reading posts.

So here’s how this alternate sign-up is going to work. The first person to sign up as an alternate competitor will get a spot in the official competition. Any additional alternate sign-ups after the first will be offered a spot if another competitor has to drop out before their first match. Again, this is on a first come, first served basis. I’d like to be able to do more for those willing to volunteer at this point, but unfortunately because of the nature of this sign-up my options are sorely limited. I greatly appreciate each and every blogger who is willing to step up and help guarantee that Blogger Blitz can be a reality, and any alternates who sign up will be credited with making the event a reality regardless of whether or not you got to compete.

The tough thing about community events of this nature is that it is very dependent on a group of folks who can make a long-term commitment to a project. Sometimes, things come up that we cannot possibly anticipate. It’s no one’s fault – it is the nature of this crazy world we live in that sometimes our best laid plans go awry. The best thing we can do in this situation is turn to the community and give new folks an opportunity to join in and make the event possible.

Thank you so much to those competitors and judges who have already signed up for the competition. Thank you to this competitor who chose to be honest about their ability to commit rather than do the easy thing and wait until the eleventh hour to leave the competition. And a particularly big thank you to those who are willing to join in now as alternates for the competition, to be the reserves so that everyone who is excited to see this event come to fruition can enjoy it. I look forward to announcing the full cast of Blogger Blitz as soon as possible!