This is going to be a very random rambling about this year and my time with the Pokémon Watty Awards. Not sure how long it will end up being, I just feel like spouting some thoughts and my experiences with the awards.

Last year I entered New Moon Academy: Warriors of Darkness into the adventure category. It was a book that a lot of people seemed to like and I thought there were a lot of good moments in it, despite me having slightly butchered the villains. I felt like I might be in with a chance of placing. Fast forward a little and... nothing. I didn't place or win any special awards and I was definitely pretty bummed about it. I worked pretty hard on that book trying to flesh out all of the characters and make New Moon Academy a believable school but it looked as though its flaws held it back enough. I had a few people review the book for me to point out exactly what they felt the book did wrong and I won't get into details but basically, it changed my perspective a little.

At the time I was hard at work on the second New Moon Academy book with the intention of entering it into the 2017 awards. Whilst I think it was a definite improvement on the first book, I was struggling more and more to write and doubt was filling my mind about how good it actually was. Pretty soon my focus shifted to an idea that I'd had back in the summer of 2016. I wanted to have a character that I could do so much with. I didn't want to be restrained. I wanted a genius who did pretty much whatever the hell they wanted. Eventually, Zam the Hybrid was born.

I decided to write this book totally differently than I've ever written anything before. I wasn't really focused on making an amazing plot. I didn't really care if none of it made any sense. I decided to write the book that I wanted to write, rather than the book I felt like I was supposed to write. I wrote it for myself more than anything. If people wanted to read it then that was cool. I didn't really care. Unlike with my previous works where I felt like it had to be good and I needed the reads. I just wanted to have a bit of fun and boy did I have fun.

Writing Zam the Hybrid is genuinely the most fun I've ever had writing a book. I enjoyed writing this book so much, I can't even express it. It's like a weird conglomeration of loads of things that I just wanted to write about. Did it make sense to put them in a Pokémon fan fiction? No, of course not! Why would anybody write a poker scene in a book that was about a children's video game? Well, I don't really know why but that chapter was a ton of fun to write! I love poker so I threw it in the book because why the hell not?

It was around July when I started thinking about the awards again. I was about halfway through writing Zam and New Moon Academy wasn't really going anywhere, I was just really struggling to write it (and still am if you haven't figured by the six month break I've taken on it) and yet I still wanted to enter something into the awards just for the hell of it. I figured that Zam was more likely to be finished in time so I opted to enter that and turned my focus towards it completely.

It was honestly great. I knew I wasn't going to win anything so there wasn't any pressure. I was still writing the same stupid fan fiction I had been writing for the past few months and I was loving doing it! It wasn't getting many reads and I was fully aware that my signature stupid humour was probably a big turnoff for some people. I still didn't mind. I was writing to make one person happy and that person just so happened to be me.

I finished the book with a little bit of time to spare and ended it by teasing a sequel. There was no way I was letting this character go. No way. I just love writing Zam. He's cocky, self-obsessed and just generally a really shitty guy but putting across his thoughts in a clever, technical, formal sounding way was just so much fun. The sequel had actually been "planned" since before I started writing the book but I didn't really think I would ever get around to it. Now I know it has to happen. There's too much that I can't just leave where it is.

It was only when the judging period started that I began to wonder if the book was actually any good. I hadn't written it with the intention of being good, so why would it be any good? Still, my new friends at the GRA seemed to be having a good time reading it and my other two readers that I always have seemed to enjoy it so I started to think... maybe I was in with a chance? I was getting more comments than I ever had before, people were actually laughing at my stupid jokes! Even the amalgamation of pure evil wrapped into an oddly adorable judge was giving off signs that she liked it. She actually liked the cucumber joke! The joke that kills off any tension the scene might have and really doesn't make any sense coming from those characters at that particular moment. What was going on? Did I have a shot?

When the nominations came in for special awards, I was nervous. This would be my first indicator of how good it actually was. For some reason I was really, really hoping to see a few nominations on there. I knew that I didn't really deserve any, I was competing with people who tried to make their books good! How could I possibly be in with a chance of a special award? And yet somehow, I was on the list. I was nominated for Best Humour (ok, fair enough, I'm hilarious), Best Beginning (cool! People liked the origins of Zam!) and Best Main Protagonist. This last one really put a smile on my face. The book is entirely driven by Zam as a main character. If he fails, the book fails but it looked as though the judges had liked him! Once again, I dared to think, did I have a shot?

I felt extremely nervous as the stream date approached. Not only was I going to find out what people really thought of my book but I was also going to appear on the livestream as both a critic and an entrant. People were going to critique my book right in front of me and I just knew I all I would be able to do would be sit and listen as my poor baby was ripped to shreds before my very eyes. I shouldn't have cared given my intentions when I wrote the book and yet I still felt like I had to do well. All I could do was wait and find out.

My book was the last to be talked about in a two-hour long stream and the anticipation was just killing me the whole way through. I was excited and nervous to hear what people thought and when the time finally came to talk about it... it just put a huge smile on my face. They liked it! They actually liked it! Don't believe me? This is what one of the judges actually said!

"This was like the only one in the adventure category where I was like, 'Oh my god, I have to keep reading this, this is amazing!' (...) Oh my god, this is tremendous."

I can't describe how happy this made me feel. It may not have all been positive and I know that a certain someone was holding back on some negativity but I didn't care. People had enjoyed reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it. I was blown away and just felt amazing. I always strive to make one person smile with my writing and in this case, I had made several smile. I was on top of the world.

So, what was the actual result I hear you asking? Well, Zam the Hybrid placed fifth in the adventure category and won the special award for Best Humour! That's right, the book that was written purely for myself and for fun and it had placed and gotten a special award! The book with awful pacing, a terrible romance, virtually no plot, the worst villains ever, characters that weren't fleshed out or just disappeared as soon as they were introduced and tonal consistency worse than Michael Jackson was placed fifth in a stacked competition purely because it was entertaining. This was honestly incredible. I had succeeded! I had written the book that I wanted to write, purely because it was good fun and people were entertained by it!

I was going to end with a rant about how to fix certain problems with the awards but honestly, I'm way too happy to bash on them right now. I'm just so thankful to everyone who read my book, left votes and comments and supported me throughout this year. Your support means the world and it's awesome to actually see some genuine results. Well, this has gone on long enough. Thanks for reading. Hopefully next year is even better!