Seth Underwood's Blog, page 6

Coronaviruses and Other Dry Viruses in Rosella Tolfree’s World

I just posted on www.rosellatolfree.com a backgrounder for her world dealing with coronaviruses and other dry viruses.

It's NOT meant to be a scientific paper on the subject, but I did do some research on the topic.

It's just information to help provide context for Rosella Tolfree's fictional world, and nothing more.

A flash sci-fi story on the use of Big Data and Pandemics

Most recently a friend of mine sent me a podcast talking about how AI had predicted the coronavirus happening before even the CDC knew about it.

This got me thinking about the use of Big Data and how it could be used in the future. Of course, with all things, I tend to take the extreme view on outcomes.

Enjoy reading- The Potential Pandemic of Squirrelpox Virus Variant A

“You must read to write!” Ack!

untitled image, By Kiyun Lee, Source Unsplash

As a writer, I absolutely despise the phrase-

“ You must read to write! ”
You see this everywhere online. Even though reading and writing are two different brain functions. Yes, they are interconnected, but still different.
I prefer the phrase-

“ Writers write, and editors read. ”
As an author, do I read?
Duh. I read scientific journals on psychology and biology as it relates to the understanding of quantum states. I dig through historical textbooks I own for bits of information. I read Medium articles on topics like feminism and artificial intelligence (not that the two are connected).

I do all this for my writing. Any sci-fi author worth their salt is forced to read research materials.
Do I read another author’s book?
This is harder for me. I rarely like to read other authors because I’ll subconsciously copy their style and voice. Oddly, many writing pundits are telling authors indirectly to do that- copy the style and voice that’s selling right now.
This is a writing strategy to sell books, and not to improve the author’s writing skills. Beyond grammatical and spelling issues, style is a subjective interpretation.
Reading other authors to glean something about their writing is nothing but economic espionage. I know, because I’ve done it. And on the other end, it’s capitalizing off the success of someone else to ride their financial windfall. I’m amazed the industry doesn’t have more copyright lawsuits over this issue.

True Writing Success
In the end, any writer can become a bestseller. This is not determined by the skill of the author in their ability to write, or the fact people like their writing style. So long as the grammatics and spelling is okay, the writing should do. After all, today’s books are written on a 5thgrade level thanks to programs like ProWritingAid.
Success has more to do with the publishing industry’s ability to create a buying synergy around an author or title. Once that happens, then you are in the top 1%. The opposite reality is more because of consumer resistance to move to new products and how selling algorithms work than anything else.
Therefore, so many books today, like video games, are given away for free to overcome consumer resistance and to try to trick the algorithms. The selling of video games and the selling of books are ironically more similar than dissimilar.

Game and book publishers have overcrowded both markets, with only a few titles at the very top doing well. And the powers that be want to keep it that way.

Current List of USRM-ISB Installment Titles

From Adobe
USRM-ISB Installments Titles Publication Location 0.1
The Ongoing Educational Vid

not published yet 0.2 The Drive to Anaheim Blog Site & Medium 0.3
The Pattyrollers Meet the Droid Singularity
Blog Site & Medium
Prologue
The Ranger Marshals
JSD #5 1 Essie in Anaheim
Blog Site & JSD #5
2
Illuminati Play
JSD #5 3
The Demented Augmented Cap JSD #5
4
The Marsha Unit
JSD #5 5 The Dream
not published yet 6
Fran and the
Blind Obelisk Blog site J0 Jon Greene
Jon Greene Stories J1 Lori Poole
Jon Greene Stories J2
Boaz Moffett and
the Night Creature
Jon Greene Stories J3

Fran and the
Blind Obelisk (republished)
Jon Greene Stories J4 Marineth Pugh
Jon Greene Stories
The Jon Greene Stories are planned to be a free PDF download.

Rosella Tolfree Briefing Notes provides some world details.

New Rosella Tolfree Freemium Story

Image- By Danielle Peterson; Source Unsplash via Adobe SparkSo, I have just posted here, and on Medium, a new Rosella Tolfree Freemium story.

This is actually a prequel story for another to follow. It provides the background details to the event, so pay attention.

And yes, there are shades of my favorite Sci-Fi writer in this but I'm going into another direction ultimately. There's also some influences of some Cyberpunk Japanese Anime in it as well.

New Freemium Short Story- Maddix Comes of Age

Untitled Image, By Davide Ragusa, Source- Unsplash.I just posted on this site a new freemium short story, Maddix Comes of Age- The Sociable Event of the Sedna Colony.

This story came to me after writing about the YouTube-COPPA issue on Medium.

In time, content creation on the internet and child privacy will eventually come to terms with each other.

But I still think there's going to be a major issue with all the idea of internet privacy in general.

Social Media is about sharing. Sharing everything, and COPPA is poorly adapted for that reality.

But who knows, maybe the future of the internet will be no more sharing and social media will come to an end.


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Listening to "Maddix Comes of Age" by Seth Underwood in medium.com via @play_ht - convert your articles to audio. Visit https://play.ht/article/maddix-comes-of-age-d30a8e08a6ab 

Gisoo- The last born human in the New Dark Ages on Medium

I just posted on Medium my Reedsy Prompt Entry entitled Gisoo- The last born human in the New Dark Ages.

Check it out.

Twitter Story- Allison

So I'm tweeting out a story called Allison.

Follow along if you want.

Seth Underwood

Allison Tweet 1
Alan Stafford laid dead on the queen-sized bed his wife and him shared. The Montgomery County Police had arrived at the up county small apartment to document his death. #sciencefiction #scifi— Seth Underwood

New Posting on Medium

I just posted on Medium an piece on Rosella Tolfree's world that deals with my observations on global warming.
Rosella's world is based on the idea that the polar ice caps have melted because of a runaway global warming situation.
Check it out here!

Amazon Giveaway for 2 paperback copies of JSD 1

Just a quick post.

Currently there is an Amazon Giveaway running for 2 paperback copies of JSD 1.

https://www.amazon.com/ga/p/25cce80e0410141a