I received a frantic message this week from a writer whose computer had died. His latest backup was three weeks old... Ouch. Three weeks of work, gone in an instant.
What's your backup strategy? You do have one, right?
If you don't, implement a simple one today. It doesn't need to be extensive or time consuming.
Here's a simple strategy, in two steps.
1. Each day, before you start writing, make another copy of your current document. I like to add date stamps to my documents, so I've always got several copies of any long document. Just choose "Save As" from the File menu, and add the day's date to the end of the file name.
It's rare that a document will be corrupted, but it does occasionally happen. In my case, I create a fresh version of any long document every day because I know myself. I slash and burn when revising, and more than once, I've deleted material I wish I'd kept.
2. Get a Dropbox account (free) if you don't have one. Copy your day's work to Dropbox when you're done writing for the day.
Longer term, investigate painless online backups. There are many of these programs. Your material is uploaded online each day, so that even if your computer dies, you can be up and working again quickly.
I've heard good things about Arq (Mac) and Mozy (PC and Mac.)
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