Sunday, March 4, 2012

Back Up Your Work

I confess, I haven't been super great at backing up my work. I do it about every month, and I figured that was good enough. Then last night my computer just stopped working—right before my usual monthly back up.

Let me tell you, it was one of the scariest things I'd experienced professionally, even though I wouldn't have lost "that much" because I did back up a month ago. BUT. I would have lost the entirety of the edit I just finished, which I'd been working on for the last three weeks. It was my first full edit of House of Ivy and Sorrow, and the thought of going back to my first draft was terrifying.

Usually I have a copy of my work in gmail, either from sending chapters to crit partners or manuscripts to my agent/editor. This is probably why I haven't stressed much about backing up my stuff—I know I have a copy elsewhere that I can access not only on my computer.

This time I didn't. The second draft I've been working my butt off on didn't exist anywhere but my computer (that has since changed), and the thought of losing it sent me into a fit of panic. Not only was I possibly going to lose a month's worth of work, but it was work I had a deadline for. I didn't have TIME to lose it when I'm already on a tight schedule (aka: baby due in about 10 weeks). It would have been a huge problem if I lost that one single file.

Luckily (very, VERY luckily), the end of this scenario is happy, because I happen to be married to a computer guy, who was able to resolve everything by the end of the night. No waiting on pins and needles until Monday morning to take it to a store and find out whether or not I lost all that work (I might have gone crazy.). Nick was even able to repair my computer, which at first we thought was dead. It felt like a miracle, and the first thing I did was back up all my stuff (Then I kissed him, because seriously.).

As I lay in bed last night thinking about it all, a strange realization hit me: I can't be flippant with my backups anymore. This is my JOB now (Such a weird thought!). Every draft I write is potentially something I could sell, and setbacks have bigger consequences than ever.

I know, I'm slow coming to this realization. But I really never thought of it that way! Before having an agent or editor, I wrote a lot of stuff. Sure, I didn't want to lose it, but if I did I had the time to recreate it. The deadlines were all my own, even if I took them seriously. Now I have people expecting my work at certain times. Real, live people who make part of their living off my words. That is a huge responsibility (And kinda scary at times, gotta say). I can't afford to lose a month's worth of work because I am forgetful about backing up my computer.

So get in the habit now. It's not hard to back up files, and you never want to be in a situation where you've lost work. I've certainly been scared straight.

24 comments:

  1. That is pretty terrifying. I'm not published and haven't even started to query, but I feel a lot of pressure to get my story revised and polished. I should be having fun with the writing; which I do enjoy, because as you've proven, it certainly doesn't get better over time. The pressure only gets more intense with each "success". Great post and reminder.

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  2. I've had that happen (crash and lose everything) and it feels devastating - and I wasn't even up against a deadline.

    Now I used Dropbox, which puts a folder on your computer that syncs with an online site whenever a change is made to the contents of the folder. I have all my writing files in that folder, so every time I hit the save button within the writing program, it changes the file and Dropbox automatically backs up my work. It even saves past copies of your work so you can go back to a previous version if your current one becomes corrupted or something. Absolute peace of mind.

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  3. Oh man, so scary. I lost the first novel I ever wrote when a floppy disc (yeah, one of those) snapped and I had no backup of it anywhere else. This was ten years ago, of course, but it still hurt. Had another scare just like yours a few weeks ago when a virus not only corrupted my laptop, but my portable external hard drive. Ack! Thankfully got everything back, though. It's really something you have to do daily, I find, because that one time you forget, or decide not to, could be the day your computer crashes.

    I'm glad you got your work back!

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  4. Lately, I've been slacking on my back ups. Not anymore!

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  5. Natalie, thanks for the reminder! I usually keep several copies of my current WIP. But I do understand that when you've made several changes, you don't want to have to go back and remember what they were.
    I think my worse scenario was in college. I had written 400 lines of code(yes, 400) w/o hitting save even once, and the power went out. Sadly, I did this twice before I learned my lesson. :(

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  6. Thanks for the post - it reminded me that I needed to keep up on this. I've been a slacker lately. I just backed up my current WIP for the first time. Thank you!

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  7. I use 'Dropbox' so I never have to worry about a hardware failure.

    I've lost too much stuff in the past to mess around.

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  8. That's scary, but hooray for computer guys!

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  9. Thanks for the reminder. I think I'll take this moment to compulsively back up all of my work.

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  10. Scary stuff. Glad your husband was able to fix the computer.

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  11. Silly question that I'll be happy I asked: How do you back up your work?

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  12. Absolutely terrifying. I hate those moments when you think you've lost a ton of work.

    I keep copies of my work on my netbook and my PC, as well as on Google Documents, in my Gmail archives, and uploaded to Dropbox.

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  13. I never remembered to backup but with novels and client's copy, I invested in Carbonite. It's not very expensive and it backups up daily, automatically. It has been a lifesaver on more than one occasion.

    And now that they dropped their advertising from a particularly misogynistic hater, I'm even happier with them.

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  14. I suggest dropbox. I use it for back-up and to sync my documents between my two computers. It's a god-send.

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  15. I like Dropbox and Box for additional storage sites as well. And I send copies to an email folder as well as the primary spot, my flashdrive.

    A few weeks ago I left my flashdrive, which is on my keyring, in my pants pocket when I did a wash. I found them post wash, took them out before putting everything in the dryer. I'd have been more worried about it if I hadn't done the backups that day, because I would have been consumed with worry that I'd lost the passages I'd been writing, but when I went online the following day and checked the flashdrive, it was working fine. The cap never went off, so the drive itself had been kept dry through the spin cycle.

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  16. And don't forget to backup your blog(s) too. Blogger has been known to lose them.

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  17. My latest WIP I wrote 70K my Laptop crashed (I had saved it in documents rather than memory stick, all that was saved was 30K for a day I beat myself up about this, but it was a lesson I will never forget so I send myself a copy via email and save the file on memory stick, writing is hard enough so I hope to not do this again.

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  18. To add to the voices above - I've got Dropbox and Windows Live Mesh accounts to automagically sync important files and folders to 'the cloud'.

    It also means that if UPS ever deliver my new MacBook, I'll be able to access them from on there also. I'm not holding my breath for UPS.

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  19. Lost my stuff for a much different reason. It was on my laptop. My laptop was in the boat I built with my own two hands. I left New Zealand with the laptop in the boat, bound for Hawaii. On the way, a reef jumped up and bit the boat on the bottom, eventually destroying the boat, the laptop, and almost me. Luckily, a rescue helicopter was able to fly out and winch me off the tall rock I'd managed to scramble up, but it couldn't save the laptop. Everything was gone. Have no idea how much I lost. I got friends and foes to send me everything of mine they had (beta readers are lifesavers) but still. Now I use clouds (DropBox) to keep everything backed up, just in case I decide to take another sail around the world or something.

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  20. Invest in CrashPlan. It's awesome. It's like a super secret ninja that does all your backup for you to either an external hard drive or to their cloud server. It's saved me (and my novel) on more than one occasion.

    If you do a lot of photography, it's also the best for backing up large files.

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  21. Thanks for this. Inspired me to finally sign up for Dropbox.

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  22. I know what this feels like!
    I don't write books but I do make computer applications...and the same thing happened to me! Luckily just like your husband my brother is computer Whiz! So thank God! :)

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