Never Lose Your Writing - 7 Ways to Make Sure You Don't

Last weekend I managed to clear everything from my diary. I had nothing to do except write, and I was hoping to finish this draft of the never ending novel. I woke on Saturday morning and immediately settled down to write. After a couple of hours or so, I was gaily tapping away when my laptop froze.

Panic!

What was I to do? I couldn't save what I'd done, I couldn't scroll the screen so I could read what I'd just written and I knew I hadn't saved it. Arghh! There is nothing worse than losing work you've spent time writing. And the situation was compounded by that lovely blank weekend - I didn't want to waste a moment of time because of a duff computer.

In the end I copied what I could from the screen - a few hundred words - turned off my laptop, then started it up again. The laptop was working normally and it had saved the document I had been working on so none of my morning's labour was in vain. I carried on and, after 11 hours (yes! 11!) I wrote the words: The End.

Losing your work is infuriating for everyone, for you for that wasted labour, for anyone else who has to listen to your tale of woe. You MUST take precautions to save your work. What you do will vary from person to person, but you need to get a system going. Some ideas....

1) Locate the Autosave or Autorecovery feature on your computer. Mine is set to save every 5 minutes so I should only ever lose 5 minutes work. Macs are usually pre-set to save, but it's optional on PCs - check it out.

2) Usually in the same menu as the Autosave/Autorecovery feature is one to create an automatic back up. Use it.

3) Get an external device such as a memory stick or an external hard drive. Get into the habit of regularly saving your work on to it. I was annoyed with myself because I hadn't saved my morning's work onto my memory stick as I usually do every 20 minutes or so.

4) I also regularly send work to myself as an attachment form one email account to another. It's easy to set up a Hotmail or Yahoo account just for this purpose. This means I can retrieve it should I need to from cyber space.

5) Print out a hard copy. People blanch at this one, as if reckless use of paper will ruin the planet, but let's face it, this is your precious work - it's worth a few trees (and besides, the trees used for paper are a renewable source like a crop of wheat or carrots.)

6) You can get devices that automatically save and store your work onto external hard drives. We're at the limits of my technological knowledge - I know these things exist, but don't use them myself.

7) There is similar software that will automatically store your work in cyber space. Again, not something I use but I know they're out there.

With luck, some lovely reader(s) of this blog will know more about 6 and 7, and will come up with suggestions. And are there any other simple ways to save work I haven't mentioned?

Whatever method you use, however, there really isn't any excuse for losing work. So, while I might make sympathetic noises to your tale of woe about lost work, I'm not that sympathetic. If you haven't got back up systems in place, do something about it - and now!

3 x When Computers and Writing Don't Mix

After my posts on index cards, I was interested by some of the comments about rewriting and plotting on computer. Now, I'm a dinosaur and always choose for the lowest tech approach possible, but I know there are lots of people out there for whom computers are a more natural way of working. However, there are three circumstances when I think computers really don't work.

1. Re-drafting

You've written your novel, and if you're technically minded you might have used something clever like a spreadsheet to develop it. At this stage I'd say dump the computer. Rewrites HAVE to be a time when anything goes, when you're shuffling the cards around and anything could end up anywhere. If you use a spread sheet, you're changing one element a time. It doesn't have the same 'suck it and see' facility. There's an organic fluidity about using the cards: Take this one away, what does the novel look like? Put this one here, not there, or what about over there? This needs to happen before that - or does it? It's harder to experiment when it's on the computer, it all looks so neat and tidy and well organised. But it's got to get worse before getting better.

2. Editing

For some strange reason, when we edit on the computer screen we miss stuff. Print it out and mistakes and typos screech at you, practically circling themselves with red ink. Always, always, always print out your manuscript to do at least the final edit on paper.

3. Note taking

OK, this one has caused me grief because I really really really want an iPad and taking notes was one of the ways I was going to justify it to myself. But I know it doesn't work like that. A bit like re-drafting, notes are an organic form, the imaginative part of the brain working, not the technical bit. Snippets of info get saved - ideas for titles, snatches of dialogue, plot ideas (and shopping lists). Now you can put them all neatly into your computer, but I bet you won't get round to looking at them. Whereas, what could be simpler or more absorbing than flicking through one of your old notebooks and seeing a ragbag of information?

Computers are wonderful tools and incredibly useful. But writing is an imaginative act, so don't get sucked into using them for everything.