Back Up Plan

The rule of thumb is to have back up to your writing. Do not just keep one copy of anything.

I have had a near heart stopping experience when my laptop went out on me and I thought I had lost EVERYTHING because I had only saved my work on the laptop. (You might remember that posting labeled Not So Funny posted on 01-27-10)

After that night I made sure I had several back up plans to anything I was working on. I went out and purchased my very first flash drive (Yes I have been behind in the times, I have been told that I need to join the new millennium.) and I saved everything I had onto this flash drive.

Then to back up THAT plan I started emailing myself at work and keeping a file there, just in case. On top of that I opened a strictly writing email account, one that only holds emailed copies of my work as I finish each writing night.

So I thought I was good to go, I took ALL precautions possible. Right?

Well what in the world do you do when your flash drive crashes in the midst of writing and you hadn’t had a chance to go through your twenty minute saving process?
I’ll tell you what you do… You call your husband crying in the hopes he can whip out some magic over the phone powers for you.

After he tells you to calm down – Don’t you hate it when someone says “Calm down, it will be okay” when in fact it is not okay? – You hang up and curse him to the pits of Hell. Even though you know it is not his fault your electronics hate you so much.

Then you growl at the blasted computer and go take a nice long bath and read a good book. Well, this is what I did last night.

Luckily for me, my husband is a freaking genius and managed to pull apart my newest enemy, saving everything onto his own laptop. So I didn’t lose anything this time.

But how do we solve major/minor problems such as these? Am I going to have to stop every few minutes and save my WIP in ten different areas so I won’t have to feel the gripping fear of losing anything again? At what point am I spending more time fretting over if it is saved or not than I am writing the actual story? Even now writing this post I have saved it seven times…

Maybe the real problem is me, appliances and electronics just do not care for my presence.