Authors Tools Blog

Two years ago my National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) novel flowed from my fingers. My plot had marvelous twists and turns. My characters whispered sweet dialogue in my ear. The words flowed from my brain, through my fingers, onto my screen.

I use the AlphaSmart Dana to record my words during NaNoWriMo. However, most of the rest of the year, I write using my computer. I tend to forget the fine details of how the words actually move from the Dana to my computer.

I always (usually) create a folder where I move the day’s work after I sync it from the Dana. That year I forgot.

I had several days worth of words uploaded. I plugged in the Dana to sync the latest words of my masterpiece. Too late, I realized that the new words were overwriting the words of the previous several days. In a flash, I lost over 5,000 words.

Now, you know I’m always talking about backing up your data. It’s one of my favorite themes.

I did not have those words backed up!

 The next day I broke a personal records for most words written. However, I still didn’t write enough to make up for the lost words and the current day’s words. My spreadsheet still showed my total word count in red.

Don’t do what I did.

Here are some easy ways to keep your words safe.

• Email your work to yourself
• Try backing up your words to Google Documents
• Copy your work to a thumb drive
• Copy your work to a CD or DVD or floppy disk
• Use an automated online backup service
• Use an image backup software for backing up your words

Whatever you do, backup your work some way.

What is your worst experience with losing data?

Write on,

Lynn Jordan