The Sound of Your Work Disappearing

My computer just flat out stopped working on Mother's Day.   Anyone who tries to tell me this was a sign I need to slow down will be beheaded with a dull kitchen knife.  The computer screen was just black, no happy loud stereophonic bing bong, no flash of aqua light.  No sign-in page.  To make matters worse, the back up hard drive I was relying on was on the fritz, and had been for a while, so the back ups were spotty and from about three weeks ago.

Here is the lesson to the writer.  Back up your freaking work everywhere and if you feel you are being manic about backing up your work, back it up one more time.  Print the goddamn 200 pages of work.  You deserve to consume this much printer paper after sorting through your recycling to make sure the plastic blueberry container is in a different vessel for the sanitation department than the tin foil.   And don't use the backs of other previously printed work for these precious back ups.  There are always the hidden staple, rough edged three hole punch or paper put in upside down that will jam your printer and suck three unnecessary hours out of your day thus preventing the execution of the other nine back ups you need to do for your work.

Okay, I spiral but for good reason.  It is shocking how I, and I assume many of you out there, do not amply back up my work.  What is the point of spending gobs of money on babysitters, standing up to your husband and children for your free writing time on weekends, clawing through the guilt of making no money at this time to speak of on your craft, if you write a 155 page novel and it disappears instantly like bad bubble solution due to a fried logic board.  Sure, sure, we're all hamsters on a wheel.  Kid gets a middle ear infection and suddenly the new focus is the antibiotic,  the run to Target for countless boxes of tissues for a snotty bubbly nose,  the lack of sleep and the second kid jealous of the attention paid to the sick kid sucking up your time and causing you to bellow more than usual, producing a kink in your neck that jabs every time you back space.   BUT despite the ever-present demands of domesticity, I have to make the time to back up my precious writing efforts in three places: a new zip drive, a small portable drive and an online storage source.   I plopped $139 without batting an eyelash down on a new drive at the Mac store, and plan to check out a web site my friend suggested for online storage.  I will post here more details once I investigate that further.  And,  next to the sign on my wall that says "Write 10 pages a Day" I will post a new sign that says "Back up your work three times".  I suggest you do so!  Don't let the possibility of becoming a published writer disappear into the inevitable disfunction of technology!