So I've been super inactive on Wattpad recently and you may have been wondering where I've been and what I've been up to. The short answer is that I'm lazy as fuck, the long answer is that I've been pretty busy with a lot of stuff but now I've got a mixture of good news and bad news.

So the last time I posted any actual piece of writing was when I finished the Zam the Hybrid edit which was genuinely months ago but that doesn't mean I haven't been working on stuff. After that was done and dusted, I started work on my PWA entry for this year, a oneshot called Champion of the People all about Magnus, the creator of the Pokéathlon, trying to retain his title one last time in his final ever race in the Pokéathlon. The whole thing has been written up, edited and completed and I can post it whenever I want. Except I don't have a cover and for some reason, I've been far too lazy to reach out and find an artist who can make one for me.

The other thing I've been working on is finishing up my plans for the Zam sequel. Now I know I've said those words a lot but this time I really mean it. In the last few weeks, I've managed to find both motivation and inspiration out of nowhere and my plans are basically nailed down. I could start writing it now if I wanted to. And I definitely do want to, but my motivation just isn't strong enough at the moment. The problem I have is not that I don't have the time, more that I don't have much time, and it's really easy for me to spend that time doing other things I really like doing. My motivation is definitely returning, especially as I get more and more excited about the prospect of putting something out there that I've put my heart and soul into, but that excitement comes with a certain fear as well. Writing the first book was done with complete freedom, my sole purpose being to write something fun and to have fun whilst doing it and I really want to do that again but I also don't want to go through the same frustrations as last time.

Essentially, last time I cucked myself. There were so many small decisions I made writing Zam which seriously hindered the book and I made those decisions partially with the excuse of "It's just fun, I don't care if it sucks" and partially because I'm extremely lazy. Why do all the hard work when you can just not care? After placing 5th in the 2017 PWA, I was so happy but when I realised how close I was to actually winning the whole thing if I didn't make certain key mistakes out of sheer laziness, I became very frustrated with myself. I'd always told myself that I'd never edit a book. As far as I was concerned, once it was done, it was done, and since I have no aspirations of becoming a professional writer, I didn't care if it was good practice or not. But hearing feedback for my book really frustrated me because the criticism was so consistent and so, well, wrong. In my eyes at least.

The criticism I received was totally valid for the book that I had actually written, but not valid for the book I'd had in mind. If I'd have actually sat down and properly written and showcased my ideas properly, maybe the book would've been extremely well received from the start and maybe I'd have won the PWA. Or at least got closer. Then I could've been proud of the book I wrote and what I achieved. As it happened, I still am proud of what I achieved, but there's that little part of me that sighs and says "If only... if only..."

So that's why I felt compelled to edit the book. I thought it deserved a better rap than it got and I wanted to show what could've been and now what actually is. If you look at the original compared to the current, you can see that it's actually really similar, the story itself is almost totally unchanged. But there are just little things here and there that I fixed up, or things that I added that should've been in the original and were even in my original plans I just decided not to write them in because... I don't know. I guess I was just lazy.

So, what can we actually take from this rant? To sum it all up, I'm very conflicted. I need motivation and yet despite my excitement, my motivation is crippled with fear. Fear that the same thing happens again. I don't want to release another almost finished product with glaringly obvious flaws that drag the whole thing down and leave a poor taste. But then at the same time, I don't want to spend so much effort in making the book all nice and polished just to lose sight of what made the first book so enjoyable, both to read and write. I still just want to have fun.

So that's the situation about all things writing. But of course, that's not the only thing going on, which is another part in why I haven't got around to this stuff yet. One big thing is obviously exams. It takes me so long to build up to doing anything and then there's always some kind of exam that I have to drop everything for and solidly work for that instead. That's just life though, if I had better time management skills, it wouldn't be such an issue.

A big part of my life right now is draft league. I'm so passionate and so in love with draft that if I could spend every hour of every day playing it, I genuinely would. Over the last few months I played in the PTL, a league with three divisions, each division having relegation spots, promotion spots as well as its own playoffs and championships. I joined late in season 1 in D3, managed to rescue to team I took over and earn promotion to D2. 

In season 2 I had the season of my life. I started out very rocky, my draft ranked 13th out of 16 teams and then I lost my first 2 games, leaving me in 15th place in the league, already seemingly out of playoff contention. Then I made a trade that transformed my team from below average to utterly fantastic. The original team was Mega Latios, Necrozma, Mamoswine, Shaymin, Buzzwole, Primarina, Stakataka, Tornadus Incarnate, Slurpuff, Gligar and Palpitoad. In week 3, I traded Slurpuff and Palpitoad for Incineroar, giving me the bulky pivot that this team desperately needed, as well as providing me with a much needed Fire type and Dark type, and a mon with Knock Off to boot. This totally changed the dynamic of the team, allowing my insane wall breaking core to be unleashed. I'd had a rocky start but believe me, the combination of Mega Latios, Mamoswine, Buzzwole and Primarina is devastating. The switch ins to these mons simply don't exist. Any one of them is monstrously good, but all four together is actually disgusting. This is one of the best wall breaking cores that has ever been drafted and being able to back it up with the likes of Shaymin, Necrozma, as well as Stakataka is a terrifying prospect. I dominated the rest of the regular season, finishing with a stellar 8-4 record and an outrageous +23 differential, putting me in 3rd place.

Now it was time for playoffs. The quarter-finals and semi-finals where probably two of my most dominant wins so far, as by now I knew my team and how it operated far too well. I knew what my strengths were and I knew how to exploit them to their full potential. I had made it to the final. I'll leave a link to the battle in this line of comments because believe me, you HAVE to watch this game. For a final, for a championship match, this was UNBELIEVABLE. Please, please, PLEASE watch it, you will not be disappointed.

So this game was played against Ian, which was very fitting. He was actually the guy I played in week 3, when my season kicked off and I started to go on a tear. However, that was when his season kicked off as well. Since then, he hadn't lost a single game, rounding out his season with a ridiculous 10-2 and obviously winning his semi-final match as well. So in order to win, I had to break a ten-match win streak, which believe me, that is almost unheard of. I respected Ian as a battler so much and I could not have asked for a better opponent.

As for the game itself, you can see how it went down. Two players at the top of their game, making for a thrilling back and forth, with crazy momentum swings and excellent plays on both sides. It was so evenly matched that it couldn't be more fitting that it came down to the absolute wire, the closest a match of Pokémon can possibly get. 1 hp was the difference between victory and defeat, champion or runner up.

And yours truly took it home.

With season 2 wrapped up, I'd earned another promotion, placing me in the highest division, D1. It's been a tough season so far, I'm sitting at 4-3, just outside of a playoff spot but I'm in a decent position, a very similar spot to where I was last season. Going on at the same time is the PHL, the league that I run. Running this league, prepping and playing for two leagues at once as well as helping out some friends prep in the PHL as well as helping a certain aDrive with mock battles keeps me fairly busy. These commitments take up a considerable amount of time but I look forward to them so much and am so passionate about draft that I don't even think about how much of my life is dedicated to it right now. Maybe when I'm only doing 1 league at a time, I'll be a lot more free.

Another project I decided to take on for the summer and for the future was starting a review book. Not a review book where I take requests and read people's books, although I might do that in the future, but just a book where I can spew my thoughts about whatever I've been looking at. It'll mostly be movies and tv shows since I watch those way more than I read books. Throughout the summer, me and my sister have been watching every single MCU movie from the start, so my first challenge for this review book will be to review and rank the entirety of the MCU. It's a big ask, but it's a project that I'm really looking forward to and from that point on I can review whatever I want.

I think that's it for this little update. The long and short of it is, I'm kinda busy, but stuff will happen soon. Thanks for reading.