library – Deborah Makarios

November 27, 2021November 27, 2021

You Know You Read Too Much When…

Last week, I got nerd-shamed by a car.

I had just been for my weekly visit to the localish library (behold my resplendent self-control), and was proceeding to depart the carpark in the usual manner, i.e. in a car, when I beheld a warning light upon the dashboard.

Lit up in red, the combination of a pictogram and a numeral, the warning light was there to inform me that the front seat passenger did not have their seatbelt on.

This was a matter of concern. Not because of the increased danger to life and limb caused by an absence of seatbelt-wearing, nor even because the driver of a car containing an unseatbelted person (if under 15) can be fined for the omission. No. This was a matter of concern because I was alone in the car.

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August 20, 2019

Grand Productivity Experiment: Phase Nine… Laid An Egg

Two eggs, if you want me to be precise. Two sessions of 25 minutes was all it took for me to realize that while the Pomodoro Technique works wonders for some, it was not for me. There are two reasons for this.

One is that if I am doing lots of small tasks, even batched together, my focus is popping about from place to place anyway. Trying to remember a specific set of things which I am supposed to be focussing on without losing that focus is just too much. Plus I tend to forget that I’ve set a timer and just womble off doing things.

The other problem is that if I am doing a big job, I like to get stuck in and do a big chunk of it. The absolute last thing I need is an alarm interrupting me every half hour telling me to stop working. Starting is always the hardest bit: why build extra starts into your work?

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January 26, 2019

Restoration Day is OUT – Again!

It’s been over a year since I published Restoration Day, and I am delighted to announce that it is now – at last! – available to the world in ebook form via something rather more book-oriented than a crowdfunding donation site. It is available, in fact, at Smashwords – and soon via Smashwords’ distribution networks.

This means that not only can you buy an epub, mobi, pdf, txt, html or lrf version from Smashwords here, it will shortly also be available in such places as Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Scribd, Kobo etc etc. Not to mention that libraries using a library aggregator service such as OverDrive or Axis360 will also be able to buy copies (at a reduced price) to loan to their patrons.

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