It’s February 1st, 2015. It is time for the Week Four update!

Days 25 through 31 have been successes, with a minimum of 1,000 words per day written. Unfortunately the maximum was not much higher than 1,000, but who cares!

Stats for Days 25 to 31:

Day 25 – 1138 words
Day 26 – 1086 words
Day 27 – 1177 words
Day 28 – 1047 words
Day 29 – 1008 words
Day 30 – 1180 words
Day 31 – 1030 words

Total count for the year thus far is 47,845 words. Average daily word count is 1,543 words, down from 1,650. The novel I’m working on is at 46,062 words. Based on my projections for the story, it is 23% finished.

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Last week I gave you the elevator pitch for Gridfall (still the working title, nothing else has occurred to me yet). This week I thought I’d give you a little rundown of the alternate industrial aspect of the story.

The paths diverged from what we see as the industrial revolution around the time that electricity was gaining a foothold. In that this is a fantasy world, not Earth, there are some things that exist that don’t for us, which is what allows for this divergence in paths.

Steam technology, burning of coal, conductive materials, and eventually the system of alternating and direct current for electricity is the path we followed. Amps, watts, voltage, etc. The whole thing.

All of that exists in a less refined form in the world of Gridfall. What happened instead was the discovery of proximity current, or a low-intensity field of generated energy, not completely unlike a magnetic field’s ability to wirelessly transfer power over short or long distances. The inspiration for proximity current comes from Nikola Tesla’s purported invention for transmitting power wirelessly through the air, which if real, never saw the light of day for one reason or another.

The difference in proximity current is that it proves safe for human contact and the entire power structure is built around these gridlines that emanate fields of proximity current, powering any device that is set to receive it. There are limitations in proximity current compared to battery-operated devices. It cannot, so far as anyone knows, be stored in traditional ways and therefore makes things like air travel and sea travel somewhat of a nuisance compared to the relative ease with which we enjoy it today.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this peek into the technology of Gridfall!

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And remember, writing is a skill. So write the hell on, writers.