Last time I put it down was when Stephen Wraysford's thoughts turned to the pain of abandonment as something he had feared all his life. When I read that I felt I now understood why Faulks had chosen to write a James Bond novel.

Abandonment as the source of pain had been a major theme in The Girl at the Lion d'Or too, so if that is a recurring theme for Faulks the author it makes sense for him to pen something Bondly. The character James Bond is not only someone who is a loner, he is lonely. An orphan, essentially raised by the British government to work for them in his adult life, the most stable connections he has are friendly colleagues. Any closer connections he forms die or betray him. Loneliness and the pain of abandonment are easy enough themes to work into a Bond story.

Looking at the brief bit relevant on Wikipedia it seems this may well be what he did.

On being open about...

Writing?

Again, something I have written about previously. How publicly to talk about my writing in progress? Looking back at my previous words on the subject it seems I had decided, as my future is unlikely to having any sort of fandom following my writing, there is nothing to be lost by being public about my process and the steps taken to complete each tale or part thereof.

There is another tension to take account of. I desire to share what I am excited about and working on, yes, and find such difficult to remain silent about. However I also enjoy to surprise people.

Last time, and I think most times I write about this I decide to be very open about process and progress. But usually at the time I am in the middle of trying to actually write something, so what gets produced is mainly progress notes and frustration venting, excerpts. Not so much the other stuff. Then months pass and I forget or am not making anything in the meanwhile.

I had the thought, accompanying the idea of writing more publicly, that people might be interested in seeing how writing actually happens. A few problems with that: 1) a lot of the people who I don't know don't read what I write are creative people themselves, so likely have their own experiences anyway, 2) since as I said I don't have any sort of following and am unlikely ever to develop one, people are not likely to be interested in how I specifically go about writing things. On the plus side, that means I don't have to worry about spoilering someone who wanted to find out what happened next by reading along.

I suppose the main reason to do so would be "Because I feel like it". Why else? And I don't think I could bring myself to do so for every story in progress, meaning if someone does care about being unspoilered there would potentially be opportunities.

Oh, this seems a bit of a pointless post. It could have been distilled to "For as long as I remember to and feel like it, I am intending to be more public about my writing in progress than most writers seem to be".

Trying to catalogue my music collection has put me to thinking about ways music has changed over the years. The vast majority of popular music these days I am quite sure does not use the system of opus numbering found in Western classical music (and Wikipedia provides the term 'European art music', which for now I like so as not to have 'classical music' being ambiguous with the classical period, and intend to remember and use).

Popular music these days does not use opus numbers (and why would it, being of a different music tradition?), but I have received the impression a rigorous such numbering was always unusual, and anyway I have also found it increasingly difficult to locate such catalogued numberings for composers from the end of the romantic period on. I do however often derive pleasure from playing about with cataloguing and classifying systems, applying them in unintended ways, and wonder at what results we might get attempting to give popular music opus numbers. To play at ordering by similar schemes and see if anything of diverting interest shows.

Opus numbers, those seem a bit diverse in what they cover, since the signification seems to be 'chronological ordering of works released by %artist'. Covering single works, long or short, thematic collections or groups of pieces that happen to be released together. Seems fair for encompassing the variety of albums released these days as well. So what would we get then? Something like:

Enya's Op. 17, No. 5 "Only If..."

Or:

The CROSS of Changes, Op. 2: III. Return to Innocence by Enigma

The number is high for Enya because I attempted to count singles as separate releases, on the basis that those often feature additional versions of tracks and otherwise unavailable tracks as B-sides. For Enigma I did not bother, but probably should have reversed that since Enigma appears much more likely to release various remixes and cuts. Which means I took the easy approach there.

I think this is nifty. It would amuse me greatly if I could do this with all the popular music in my collection and have an easy way of switching between music identity schemes.

Starlost

Wow. They want a lot of killing from me today. Got new boots to replace the ones I made, that's sad.

I found tin! Yeeee.

Silver, wowwwwwwww. Silver silver silver! Gonna put that in to replace the silver I borrowed from the guild. >_>

Carrying wayyyyy to much. Dunno what to do about it.

Antikata

I had been sent to finish cleansing the Agamand Mills, but the Scourge were too thick within the crypts. Facing so many foes at once is not a task we mages are suited for. Though I resolved to force my through with careful and firm progress, I still had not made far into the depths before I was set upon by four or more and fled back out of the crypt.

That was too much. I picked my way down the cliffside, skidding a couple of times badly, until finally I dropped myself into the ocean and swam round the headland in search of safe shores. Curiosity got the better of me, and peeking at a chest in the mouth of a dead fish saw a swarm of murlocs after me, so I ran all the way back to Brill. I am sure my frost armour is the only reason I can manage such escapes, allowing me to outpace any who dare strike me.

Since it seems I must regather myself before attempting the final cleansing of those crypts I have taken myself south, to deliver some messages and make my first visit to Undercity. I had never got to visit here in life but I am sure it is much changed. With the surface in ruins, how could it not be?

Mistpaw
New mail today from Vorlock and Starlost, did not disassemble into anything especially interesting. Still waiting on silver rod from Starlost. Going back to sleep.

Starlost
Finally made it to Loch Modan, think I found the guy I was told could show me what to do with this bear meat I found... hope it hasn't gone off by now. This is a nice area. It feels much happier than Bloodmyst. I think I will come back here after I finish helping out there.

Sword is nice and sharp and sparkly. Rawr, swish! Miss my pretty copper armour tho. I guess this stuff is better but I feel all drab. :(

Better get back home, they need me. Wish I could fly back. Maybe mine more on the way?

I feel weird. This is where my sword came from, from the ogres across the loch, but this is my first time here. I couldn't even pick it up not long ago. Maybe someday I can take it all the way back home to visit!

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Darkshore is beautiful.

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That was a lot of smelting... and I got a new hammer for my collection. But we must get back to Blood Watch. I have a princess to save!

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All this running around is making me tired. But we are new to this world so I guess we gotta go to the dwarves an' elves an' humans to find out how to cook the weird creatures here.

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Back to my own made pants now, yay! Prally should go sleep now.