Back up your work.
Send it as an attachment in a web-based e-mail.
Put in on a flash drive and keep it on your key chain.
Send a copy to a friend.
Back it up to an external hard drive.
Burn a DVD and keep it in your car/at the office.
And don't just do one of these -- do several.
I just discovered the mostly-revised version of Dust & Steel on my flash drive (which is where I usually keep my working copy) became corrupted. Ditto the copy on my computer. Fortunately, I had also sent myself the latest version as an e-mail as well before whatever happened happened. I am a much happier writer than I might have otherwise been because I was paranoid enough to have done a double-fail safe.
So, yeah: back up your work. Lots.
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8 comments:
Ooh, what Doug said. Really!
I would like to add that if you are archiving at NIU, they will also take electronic copies of your work. There's a super-secret gmail account. If you also send to that account (or mail in a CC/DVD or flash drive), your work will be moved onto the closed NIU server. Eventually, your work will be preserved for posterity.
If something happens to your copies, you know that there is always a copy there.
I'm a DropBox member:
https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTEyMTc1NTQ5
if you sign up through that link:
""For every friend you introduce to Dropbox, we'll give you both 250 MB of bonus space up to a limit of 3 GB!""
Right now I'm only using 39% of my account. You can get 50gig for $9.99 a month.
Now I'm all a-flutter. Posts like this always feel to me like a jinx. I immediately get panicky. How recently did I e-mail myself? What if the house burns down before I get home? Is the version on my portable flash the most recent? Good God, I should ditch work and back up immediately!
oops forgot to make that link clickable. i keep forgetting blogger doesn't automatically parse links.
https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTEyMTc1NTQ5
Hmmm. Maybe I should have at least one back up somewhere, eh?
I lost two chapters of my current work in progress this same way. Now I keep three backups.
You might look into Google Documents as a storage site. It's free. It's huge. It's accessible from any computer in the world, but it's password protected. The upload process is a little clumsy, but only a little. And once your work is there, you can edit it as you would in any word processor.
It's a peace of mind storage solution.
here's paranoia for ya. Every so often I back up a copy to disc and then take it to my safe deposit box at the bank.
not sure how that's any better than using Google Docs but it makes me *feel* better. :-)
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