Backing up your work

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to regularly back up your writing on the computer (if you prefer to word processing over handwriting, that is).

I’ve known a number of writers who lost hours, days, and even weeks of work due to not having backups. The causes? Anything from viruses, computer crashes, and even corrupt files.

How to backup:

• To a cloud drive. There are a number of cloud drive services which are free out there in the Web. Simply sign up, and either upload or sync the files to the drive and back up periodically.

ZumoDrive- I discovered my HP Laptop already had this installed. It offers 2 GB of space free, offers an IPhone App, and synchronizes with your computer.

Windows Skydrive is another cloud drive, offering 25 GB free, and links up with with Messenger, their online web apps, and synchronizes with the computer and mobile phone.

If you Google a search, you’ll find a huge variety of choices for backing up your work.

• To a flash drive. Flash drives, also called thumb drives, are tiny drives you insert into any USB drive and backup like any disk or hard drive. You can get them for $5-$10 and they hold from anywhere to 4-8 gigabytes of information.
• To CD/CDR/CDRW disc. I think this gets a bit pricey over time, and more complicated than the other methods. Sometimes the ‘burn’ program you use to create the backup will foul up or the disc won’t work correctly. If you can get it to work, discs generally offer 400-700 megabytes, or DVD-r/rw offer up to 708 gigabytes of space to backup your files.

You can also check your word processor for settings that automatically saves as well as saves a back up. MS Word, I know, has the setting to save every 10  minutes, but you can change this to less time. Frankly, I’d hate to lose 10 minutes of writing.

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A Broken Chain

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The WriteChain challenge I placed upon myself fizzled out the other night. I waited too long to do the writing, and my family ended up interrupting me and I couldn’t focus enough to get it done. I found myself depressed over Mother’s Day, and stressed over other things, so I gave myself the day off.

I managed over 5,000 words in nine days, which is more than what I normally do. I was sure to write specifically with the novel, and 500 was doable in light I also blog, write tutorials for my work, and journal.

I think this illustrates that as a writer, you do need a day off from time to time. Coincidently, I got a very nasty Trojan virus on my computer yesterday, leading me to spend almost eight hours of working scans, and trying to work around this stupid thing.

I finally managed to remove its evil presence. I highly recommend Spybot. Its a free program, small enough to fit on a flash drive, and works amazingly well in detecting trouble on your computer.

I also recommend Malwarebytes. This is also free and can fit on a flash drive. When you run the program, it searches for malware and viruses.

I also tell my fellow writers to BACK UP YOUR FILES. It takes a Trojan or computer crash to sink in how important it is to back up your work someplace other than your computer.

Back up to a flash drive. Also known as a thumb drive, you just plug in and use as a tiny hard drive. I have a number of flash drives for specific purposes such as my computer flash drive for repair and virus checking, another flash drive for photos and music, and another drive to back up all my documents.

Back up to the Internet. There’s a number of sites you can use to back up and even synchronize your documents;

Google Documents

Zoho

Microsoft Skydrive 

Thinkfree

Backup regularly. The more you write and create/delete files, the more often you should backup those folders.

Fortunately, I didn’t lose any data, and my new laptop is on its way. Hopefully, I’ll have it in my hands on the 16th, if I don’t go insane before then.

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The importance of backups

A writer’s worst nightmare is likely the losing of one’s work through no fault of their own. Computer crashes, viruses, or even mistakes with saving can often lose hours if not days of typing. Here are a few handy tips to save your work:

• Backup files! This is something any computer user should be doing anyway. Putting files and documents on some sort of media (disk, flash drive, or on the Internet) should be practiced daily. I keep a flash drive specific to my writing, and another for my graphics and other important files. I also use online word processor services to save my work, generally using http://www.Zoho.com for this very purpose.
• Setup auto-saves. Every word processor has the means to automatically save in timely increments. MS Word has the default of 10 minutes, but considering I type up to 90 words per minute, this can be a great deal of words lost if something bad should happen to my document. I get it save every three minutes, and check off the ‘always create backup file’ as well. This is found under the TOOLS, then OPTIONS, and click the TAB button entitled SAVE.

Do not think this won’t happen to you. Every writer I’ve met encountered this at one time or another, so the threat is definitely there. Also remember that by changing the name, location, or format of a file always creates a copy. Having a copy OFF the computer onto something else is very important in this day and age of computer viruses.