M as in Mancy: A Fantasy Baseball Experiment (Week 1)

(For those wondering what all this M business is about, read this post to catch up)

Ahh, the beginning of a new season. When hopes are fresh, the grass is green, and dreams are un-shattered. So how'd my team of M-named heroes do in the first week of Fantasy Baseball?

Spoiler alert: everything is terrible and I want to go home.

Somehow I won SB, and squeaked by with RBI. Aside from that everything was pretty much awful. Four of my starting pitchers were affected by postponed games, so I didn't get a lot of double-starts in Week 1 like my opponent did. But it's not as if that mattered: there was a lot of suck in the first week.

THE GOOD

• Miguel Sano is hitting .350 with 7 Runs, 2 HR, 8 RBI, and 17 TB. 
• Similarly, Matt Kemp is batting .500 with 2 HR and 18 TB.
• Manuel Margot is good at baseball things (2 HR, 17 TB)
• Matt Harvey, Michael Fulmer, and Michael Wacha have been good at throwing the baseball to the catcher during baseball games.

THE BAD

• Michael Conforto isn't playing at all in that crowded Mets outfield, so I went ahead and dropped him for Manuel Margot (that part is nice)
• Matt Kemp has a hamstring injury because I guess I'm not allowed to have nice things.
• Mark Melancon should try not giving up runs instead of giving up runs. 

THE UGLY

• LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE WTF

Seriously, the first week was a disaster. I was losing my matchup 0-12 for much of the week, and I'm firmly in last place right now. Having said that, my opponent had just about the best week of anyone in the league. If I had been matched up against any other team I'd have somewhere between 6-10 points right now. So that's nice. Or at least I keep telling myself that.

Here's how my team looks now, for those wondering.

M as in Mancy: A Fantasy Baseball Experiment

Last year, I drafted an entire fantasy baseball team made up of players with names beginning with J. It started as an accident, drafting Josh Donaldson/Jose Abreu/JD Martinez, and once I realized they all had J names is spiraled out of control.

I posted updates on Reddit throughout the season. The team ended up in 2nd place and was competitive all season. It was nuts. Crazy and fun and wild and nuts. 

This year I'll be repeating the experiment, and posting updates on my blog. But I have a new gimmick this year.

M as in Mancy

(In case you don't get the title, it's a reference to this scene from Archer). 

I'll be posting weekly updates (or bi-weekly, or tri-weekly, or whenever I goddamn feel like it get off my back mom) on Mondays this year to keep you abreast of the glory (and failures) of the team. Read on if you want to hear about my draft strategy and how I ended up with the team I did.

The draft was last night, and it went as well as could be expected. I had the 5th pick. I missed out on a few players I wanted but hey, them's the breaks. Here's a position-by-position breakdown of my draft strategy, with the player's average draft position in parenthesis. Bolded players are ones I drafted.

Catcher

1. M. Wieters (275)
2. M. Montero (1069)
3. M. Zunino (1137)

Yeah, my options were a bit limited here. Wieters is the guy, but at least I was able to wait until the 17th round to get him.

First Base

1. M. Cabrera (13)
2. M. Carpenter (77)
3. M. Holliday (168)
4. M. Napoli (173)
5. M. Moreland (300)
6. M. Gonzalez (462)

Although Carpenter has 1B eligibility in Yahoo, he's far more valuable at 2B and 3B so let's ignore him, because he's never going to play 1B for me. I was hoping Miggy would fall to me in the 2nd round, but sadly he did not, and I waited too long to grab Holliday. So Napoli is my first baseman. I'm still not sure how I feel about that.

Second Base

1. M. Carpenter (77)
2. M. Gonzalez (462)

Yeah, we're pretty weak on depth here. I reached for Carpenter and took him in the 3rd round. I feel confident with him holding down the position, but I sure hope I don't get stuck running Marwin Gonzalez out there if an injury happens.

Third Base

1. M. Machado (8)
2. M. Carpenter (77)
3. M. Franco (123)
4. M. Sano (145)
5. M. Moustakas (205)
6. M. Gonzalez (462)

Third basemen for daaaaaaaaaaaaaays. Machado's gunna be my SS, and Carpenter is my 2B, so in reality this position belongs to Franco and Sano. I think Franco's poised for a big breakout year, and Sano should improve on his 2016 season, so I feel pretty damn good about taking them in the 9th and 10th rounds.

Short Stop

1. M. Machado (8)
2. M. Semien (226)
3. M. Gonzalez (462)
4. M. Duffy (611)

It's the Machado show all day, every day. Snagged him with my first round pick, and then book-ended the draft by taking Semien with my last pick, just to have a backup. My entire draft strategy revolved around getting Machado, so after that everything was cake.

Outfield

1. M. Trout (1)
2. M. Betts (2)
3. M. Kemp (72)
4. M. Trumbo (88)
5. M. Ozuna (134)
6. M. Brantley (137)
7. M. Sano (145)
8. M. Holliday (168)
9. M. Cabrera (217)
10. M. Conforto (242
11. M. Kepler (253)
12. M. Margot (301)
13. M. Upton (366)
14. M. Saunders (495)

Trout and Betts were never really on the table for me. After that things opened up pretty wide. Grabbed Kemp in the 4th round, Trumbo in the 6th, then Brantley in the 12th. Conforto I'm really just holding onto in case he has a big breakout year, because he's killin' it in spring training.

Starting Pitching

1. M. Scherzer (14)
2. M. Bumgarner (17)
3. M. Tanaka (74)
4. M. Fulmer (113)
5. M. Harvey (120)
6. M. Stroman (151)
7. M. Estrada (194)
8. M. Shoemaker (195)
9. M. Pineda (201)
10. M. Moore (219)
11. M. Leake (292)
12. M. Foltynewicz (297)
13. M. Montgomery (299)
14. M. Andriese (317)

In all my mock drafts (six of them. Six!) I was able to grab one of Scherzer/Bumgarner in the 2nd round. So guess what happened on draft day? Both of them got snagged right before my 2nd pick. So I was forced to super-reach for Tanaka with my 2nd pick instead. But beyond that, I've got a lot of really solid pitching. This is going to be a quantity vs quality thing: with 9 starting pitchers hopefully I can win the three counting stats (Wins, Strikeouts, and Quality Starts) every week.

Relief Pitching

1. M. Melancon (142)
2. M. Bush (350)
3. M. Lorenzen (532)
4. M. Cabrera

Okay, so we've got a problem. Melancon is the only reliever with an M name. This was a problem because A) I needed to reach for him hard, in the 5th round, because I've seen him go much earlier than expected in my mock drafts, and B) it means I'm thin on depth. I drafted Matt Bush with the hope that he gets the closer job in Texas, and have my eyes on setup men Lorenzen and Cabrera in case their able to get promoted too. But otherwise, I'm not going to be winning Saves very much. I might even see if I can move Melancon and punt on Saves entirely. We'll see.

So that's the team. Other players I have my eye on are Martin Prado, Melvin Upton, Miguel Gonzalez, Mike Leake, and Matt Andriese. I'm sure there will be a lot of transactions as the year goes on. Cheers to another hopefully-successful-but-probably-disastrous fantasy baseball year!

Treasures of the Forgotten City Giveaway!

It's time to give some books away!

We've got 10 free copies of Treasures of the Forgotten City waiting to be shipped out. Like Indiana Jones? Or Interactive Fiction? Or a combination of Indiana Jones and Interactive Fiction? Click below to enter! 

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      <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29894477">Treasures of the Forgotten City</a>
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      by <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15164453.Danny_McAleese">Danny McAleese</a>
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        Giveaway ends February 15, 2017.
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        See the <a style="text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/222466">giveaway details</a>
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Review: Ready Player One

Ready Player One has one hell of a hook: the creator of an online MMO-style world has died, and he's leaving his fortune to whoever can reach the hidden ending within his game. Like a Golden Ticket for World of Warcraft. Every gamer's dream.

The book paints the picture of a dystopian future where pollution and an "energy crisis" leave the world in an unlivable, awful state. Most people spend their time immersed in The OASIS, a virtual world accessed with VR goggles and haptic gloves. The setting is realistic and believable, and the book is immediately engrossing. The creator of The OASIS was obsessed with the 1980s, the decade he grew up in, so the virtual world he created is replete with pop culture references. The entire book is a grin-inducing walk down memory lane.

Unfortunately, beyond that, the book has very little going for it. I struggled to finish, and only did so out of an obligation of completeness. 

The plot is bland and predictable: an unexpected boy is the one to find the first "key" to The OASIS puzzle. The characters are one-dimensional and have no real development. The protagonist eases his way through the book without any real strife, succeeding in a never-ending series of deus-ex-machina style skills:

• "To get the first key you had to beat the Skeleton King at the game Joust. Fortunately, I'm the best in the world at it and win on the first try!"
• "To complete the first gate I had to reenact the entire War Games movie. Fortunately, I've watched it a billion times and know all the lines by heart!"
• "To get the one-up coin I had to play a perfect game of Pac-Man, something only 5 people have ever done in history! Even though I'm rusty at my Pac-Man skills, I become the 6th person after just a few hours."
• "To get the second key I had to beat the game Zork. Fortunately, I know the game by heart!"
• "To pass through the second gate I had to reenact the movie Blade Runner. Fortunately, I know the movie by heart!"

It's that sort of thing, repeated over and over. There's never any struggle, strife, or hardship, beyond the first ten pages of the book where the protagonist's living quarters are described (which stops being an issue a few pages later when he's suddenly famous and rich). 

Plot issues aside, the writing disappointed me. It's extremely "telly" (as opposed to showy). The pacing is strange and frustrating: Cline will spend pages and pages describing something unimportant, like the posters on the wall of their chat room. Then, when we reach an important part of the story (such as reaching the Dungeon where the first key resides) he'll skip past all of the action with a single "I completed the dungeon and reached the final room," type sentence. It's maddening. 

Overall, the simplicity of the story and the quality of the writing make this book feel like a Middle Grade book masquerading as adult fiction. I think it will do much better as a movie (which is due out in 2018), but as for the book, you can get the same experience merely by reading a list of 1980s movies and videogames from wikipedia. 

I don't know what I expected with this book, but it's certainly not what I got. 

2016 Writing Review

It's been a busy year. On the personal front, in June my wife and I moved halfway across the country to Fort Worth, Texas. Showing our house and then selling our house and then MOVING out of our house took a boatload of time. So, my writing suffered a bit.

But only a bit. Here's my writing, broken down by quarter:

• Q1: 171,623
• Q2: 114,737
• Q3: 102,995
• Q4: 34,372
• TOTAL: 423,727 words written

TOP DAY: January 21 (10,021 words)

TOP WEEK: January 18 (27,378 words)

TOP MONTH: January (84,269 words)

LONGEST PROJECT: Books of Bathyly #2 (100,238 words)

SHORTEST PROJECT: Home Movies (6,459 words)

I came up short of my 500,000 word goal, entirely because of my lackluster final quarter. But hey, shit happens. 423,727 is still nothing to sneeze at, especially since I did a lot of editing this year. So what specifically did I work on? 

Full Novels

• Ultimate Ending: 137,000 words, spanning 4 books. Danny McAleese and I launched the first 6 books of our CYOA series in April, and have since added 4 more. They're aimed at ages 10+, but they're great for adults too.
• Books of Bathyly #2: 100,000 words added. That puts me at 170,000 total for the book, and I still have another 30,000+ to write. Yikes. Book #1 is still out with agents, so I have a lot of time.
• Gear: 50,000 words added. This is a techno-thriller about two cyclists attempting to bike across the United States but stumble across a government facility in the desert. This is now finished (at 110,000 words total) and ready for a second draft.
• Bathed in Light: 62,000 words. The 6th book in my Tales of a Dying Star series. Written, edited, and then published on December 25. 
• Days Until Home: 33,000 words contributed. This was a collaborative sci-fi novel about a distressed asteroid mining ship. Completed in July with Mark Gardner and Greg Dragon.
• Spore: no words added. This is a techno-thriller about a man suffering debilitating sleep insomnia who weasels his way into a secretive drug trial. This year I finished two rounds of editing, sent it to beta readers, and then began querying agents. It is currently seeking representation. 

Short Stories

• One Gentleman of Suraya: 8,700 words. This was my first stab at fan fiction, writing a submission for the Star Trek Brave New Worlds competition (spoilers: I didn't win). It was a fun, if brief, exercise.
• We Don't Tolerate That Nonsense Here: 9,000 words. A story about a girl who wakes up one morning with superpowers, and how to cope with it. Currently seeking publication.
• The Ghost War: 10,000 words. Super soldiers are kept alive with machinery and continuously sent back into an endless war. This is probably my favorite short story out of any I've ever written. Currently seeking publication.
• The Watchers: 3,133. A short story about two perimeter guards defending against an invasion. I wrote this on a whim while flying to Las Vegas, and ended up not finishing it. RIP, unfinished manuscript.
• A Kite Without Wind: 10,000 words. A story about a mechanic on a space station accused of pedophilia. Currently seeking publication.
• Katie: 6,200 words. I wrote this after watching the movie Deux Machina and wishing it had a different ending. Unfinished, but I'm still tinkering with it.
• Home Movies: 6,500 words. A man begins receiving alarming videotapes from his past. Currently seeking publication.

Other Noteworthy Items

• Two of my short stories (The Lancer and The Ghost War) were awarded Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future Award. That makes three stories total! I'm running out of award space on my wall.
• The Lancer was accepted into the second Immerse Or Die anthology. It won't be published until later this year, but you can read the first anthology here. 
• Siege of Praetar skyrocketed in popularity in April, reaching the #2 spot in SFF on the Nook store and #3 on Kindle.
• My own personal author ranking peaked at #37 in the science fiction category, ahead of Michael Crichton and Neil Gaiman but just falling short of passing Stephen King.

2017 goals!

1. My goal for 2016 was to beat my 2015 record. Spoilers: it didn't happen. So, I'm going to keep my goal realistic and just shoot for 500,000 words again. That's fewer than 10,000 words per week. Totally doable! 
2. Write and submit four more short stories. Short stories are a great break in between larger projects, a way to cleanse the writing pallet and get a small, quick victory. I hit that goal in 2016, and want to do it again.
3. Write/Finish the following novels:
   • Gear: First draft is finished, just needs a second and third draft.
   • The Information War: 27,000 words done, another 80,000 to go. This is the first thing on my list, and I'll be jumping into it next week! 
   • Books of Bathyly #2: I added 100,000 words to it this year, but still have 30,000-50,000 to go. It's going to be a monster when it's done.
   • 144 Hours: A sci-fi thriller. It's all outlined, and I planned on writing it in 2016 but never did. That will change next year! 
   • Untitled Thriller: Gone Girl meets Euthanasia. Like above, I wanted to write it in 2016 but didn't. 2017 will be the year of the thriller!

Happy 2017, everyone. Get writing!