Where'd it go?

Greetings one and all,

I'm sure you have been wondering why I have not (once again) been updating. Among the usual suspects of life changing developments, a primary cause is also the rules of the Writing Contest that I did not read closely enough. You may have noticed I took down my short story - I had to per the rules of the contest. I don't even know whether or not I was judged on my writing; I may submit an inquiry later this week just out of curiosity.

I'm not bitter about the situation, at least not with Blizzard. I am, however, very upset with myself for failing to read the terms I agreed to closely enough. I have essentially forfeited the character Keeves and any related material to Blizzard, and the short story I wrote, beyond those of you who got to read it before I had to take it down, will likely never be seen again. There is truly nothing more painful to a writer than to create something you are so very proud of and know that it was for absolutely nothing.

The rules of the contest say that the character now belongs to Blizzard in its entirety, and should I wish to do something more with that character (for instance, continue the novelization of the original story I had begun writing as a screenplay), I would need to ask express permission. However, I do not believe this is any different from writing any other story with borrowed Blizzard characters. How is using Keeves in my story any different from using Thrall or Sylvanas? I now no longer own any of those characters, so as long as I claim no property over them (as I never have with any of the Blizzard owned content), I should, in theory, be able to continue my tale.

I'll be writing up a proper disclaimer to add to my fiction from now on, to claim no ownership over the Blizzard intellectual property and to passively ask express permission to use such characters in a story that is not for profit. If there happen to be any lawyers out there who read my blog (or perhaps Blizzard employees that poke around once in a while and find some interest in this particular topic), please contact me at esetenthepaladin@gmail.com . I wish only to continue enjoying my love of Blizzard games and lore through my creative writing, and to share the stories that unfold with others who might find my blatherings of interest.

Thank you faithful readers, as always, for sticking with me through the quiet times. I promise to have something of merit up as soon as I feel it is safe for me to submit something else to the vast expanses of the interwebs.

The Writing Contest

First things first, last poll!

How Many Level 80's Do You Have?

Just one, baby (14 - 45%)
Only a couple (2-3) (13 - 41%)
I'm an alt-aholic! (4-8) (2 - 6%)
You don't want to know... (8+) (2 - 6%)

Total Votes: 31

So I guess the demographic for my blog gets focused a bit more. Not very many alt-aholics that read this I take it. I left this one up for quite some time, but I have a good reason!

I've been writing. And today, my dear readers, I am going to share with you what I have been writing.

Some of you may know about a little Writing Contest that Blizzard put up about a month ago. Some of you that know me a bit better than just an anonymous blogger know I have a big, uber WoW script hovering in limbo. This writing contest allowed me to expand on one of the characters I created for my script and delve a bit deeper into her character. Now that the submissions are closed off, I thought it would be fun for me to post what I wrote and let you all take a look at what I've been working on.

It's not too terribly long (in fact, I only barely scraped over the minimum word count), but I think it rounds off nicely. Please, post constructive criticism! As someone who would like to develop her writing skills into a livlihood, I'll take everything I can get. And if people like it, perhaps I'll write another background story for another of the characters, or maybe even begin sharing bits of the script itself. If you're interested in this, let me know via comments!

**EDIT** Unfortunately, I had to pull this off of my blog since I found out TODAY (when they announced the winners) that it's against the terms I agreed to when I submitted the story. Whoops. That's what I get for not reading closely enough. I do wish a CM would have commented/deleted my post on the WoW forums informing me of this when I first did it, since I probably got disqualified for it.

I shot myself in the foot on this one. I'll be able to continue posting my other, original story (since while it's related to this one, as long as I don't use any of the text from this particular short story, I should be fine - especially since this is all non-profit and in good fun).