I'm almost ridiculous when it comes to backing up my writing. But I was reminded this week that no matter how careful I think I am, I can do more.
I use a program that automatically syncs all of my writing files between three computers and the Web. That means that, at any given time, all of my precious words are on a desktop, two laptops, and a Web site. Not only that, but I have the files in two folders, all synced. At the same time, my writers group routinely posts our critiques on Google Drive, so my latest changes are all backed up there, mostly in 10-12 page chunks.
If a hard disk crashes or a computer dies or is stolen, I'm covered. I can get my files from one of the other two computers. If something weird happens, and all three computers are killed by a solar flare or zombie invasion or fry sauce flood or whatever, I can get the files off the Web. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Ha!
So last week I go into my files to prepare the next section for my group. I open the directory for my current WIP.
It's empty.
I go to the directories for My two previous manuscripts.
Gone.
Short stories.
Gone.
Poems.
Nope.
Over ten years of writing, wiped out.
I go to backup directories.
The two older manuscripts are there. The current WIP?
Not a trace.
Somehow, most of my writing files had been deleted, probably when I switched to a new computer at work. At some point in the process of moving files from the old computer to the new one, I think, my writing folder was deleted. Unfortunately in this case, the syncing program worked perfectly. How ever the files were deleted, the empty folders were synced across all systems. That meant they were empty. Everywhere.
Panic sets in. I start figuring out how to reassemble my WIP from the files on Google Drive. It would work, but some sections are missing for weeks when we didn't post, so I need to assess the damage and see what's unrecoverable. I have visions of giving up on this story, which I've been working on for a couple years and am starting to like, because too much is missing, not knowing yet what the damages actually are.
I shoot off an email to tech support for the company whose software does the syncing for me, fully expecting the dreaded "Once it's gone it's gone" return email, then start typing a chapter I have in hard copy but not on Google Drive, just to do something to ward off a total mental collapse.
I check email, figuring it's after hours and I won't hear anything.
I hear something.
Deleted files can be recovered. They sent the instructions. The instructions could be more clear, especially in my frazzled condition. But they work. Shaking and drowning in adrenaline, my brain still in panic mode, I recover my files and immediately copy them into two other directories.
But for a while, I thought I had lost everything I had written, despite my excessive (or so I thought) back up policies.
Seriously. This did not make for an enjoyable evening. It's been several days, and I'm shaking as I write this.
My backup strategies worked this time, but it was a frightening experience that pointed out the drawback of relying on a syncing program like DropBox or Syncplicity: deletions are synced too.
It was a reminder to back up at frequent key times onto a flash drive or disk, and to use backup software that regularly backs up the synced directories to a location that is not synced.
To protect against fire, flood, or aliens, you might want to give backups to somebody in another house, like a trusted writers group member. You might even want to send them to a friend or family member in another location. One flaw in most backup systems is that the backups are usually kept near the computer, and a major disaster that damages everything gets the backups too.
No matter how diligent you are, something could go terribly wrong. And let's face it: many of us would rather lose our skin than the writing we created.
I'm still feeling the shock and pain I felt when it looked like I'd lost everything. When it comes down to it, almost nothing that doesn't breathe would cause me more pain if I lost it. Just about everything else could be replaced. And even some of the things I can't replace are ultimately just stuff. But what I write is more than stuff. And I thought I was going the extra mile to make sure I didn't lose it. Turns out, what I was doing was fine and worked as it should have, so I should feel good about that, but for my peace pf mind, I'm going to add a couple more layers of security.
Thank you all for your patience. Today I’m going to be blogging about something can really put a wrench in your finely-tuned writing machine.
A week ago, everything was going fine until I fired up my computer and saw a dreaded sentence—an error message on my computer screen that my hard drive had crashed.
As a writer, I know the value of backing things up and had been using www.dropbox.com. When I went to go see what I could get, however, it appeared that the service had not been working properly for about two months. Luckily, I had also emailed myself a few things, but many things were simply gone.
My hard drive is now at a data recovery service, and I’m assured that will be very expensive. I hope that they will be able to recover the data, because it is priceless. I do not know yet.
What can we take away from this? Here are a few of my thoughts:
1. Backup in multiple locations. You may think that what you are doing is enough. You never know when multiple things could go wrong, as in my case. Use your email, a service like dropbox or Carbonite, and external media such as external hard drives and flash drives.
2. Backup often. I would recommend doing it every day. That way, if something does happen, you will never lose more than a day’s worth of writing.
3. Don’t get complacent. I let myself get caught up in other things and didn’t worry enough about important things. Don’t let that happen to you.
As such, I’m not exactly
by Deren Hansen
Since the advent of personal computers, one of the perennial issues is backups. Elsa Neal at
The Blood-Red Pencil, for example, discusses some
quick and easy techniques for backing up your work, among which her favorite is to email your files to another account.
Backup is one of the few areas where more really is better, both in terms of frequency and techniques. As Elsa mentions, you can back up to another folder on your hard drive, to an external hard drive, to a thumb drive, to a shared location on a local network, and to a web service. If you want a more permanent record, back up to write-once media like CD/DVD ROM. The best practice is to use several different devices and methods instead of relying on a single kind of backup.
So far, so good. There's nothing revolutionary here. It's good advice that we'll likely honor more in the breach than the observance.
But all of that was simply to pave the way to telling you about a web service with which I'm quite taken called
DropBox.
You see, I have a problem. I like to write on several different computers. I've dealt with this problem by using a thumb drive to move files among the various computers. That works well when I'm in the middle of drafting a manuscript and have only a few files to manage. But it becomes burdensome when I'm working with a larger number of files.
Enter
DropBox. It's a folder that stays synchronized across a set of computers and a password-protected web service. Change a file on one system and you'll find the new version of the file ready for you on the second system.
DropBox is primarily a synchronization service, not a strict backup. It does offer a 30-day history of file changes, but it won't help if you need to keep older versions of the files for the long term. That said, if you chronically fail to keep your resolution to backup your work, DropBox is a good way to guarantee you have the latest copy of your files in more than one place.
Oh, and best of all, DropBox is free for the first 2 GB.
Deren blogs at The Laws of Making.
By:
Karen Cioffi,
on 1/21/2009
Blog:
Writing for Children with Karen Cioffi
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It's really crazy. I wrote an article the other night about submitting articles to free magazines and I can't find it. I've been having a lot of trouble with my computer lately. I'm hoping I saved it on my laptop which is trouble free...so far.
My troubles started with Microsoft Outlook. From the beginning if I tried to use it my computer hung and I had to reboot. Then my computer ate my Excel program - it literally just disappeared. After that MS Word started losing my files or saved them corrupted. I lost a 1200 word ms and several other research documents that I worked on for hours and hours and hours.
Thinking it might be the computer, I went out and got two zip drives. When working on my regular computer I only saved to the zip drive. Not wanting to lose any more files I did a backup of the zip I used (Zip A) to the second zip (B). Thank goodness, because I accidentally hit zip A while it was in my laptop and it broke. Talk about Murphy's Law.
I also thought maybe something happened to the Microsoft program so I had my husband delete it from my computer and he downloaded Open Office for me. I still had problems with files becoming corrupt or disappearing. Then, I lost Works Spreadsheet program - just disappeared. Is it Gremlins?
So, now I only use my regular computer for things I don't have to save. I also got a third zip drive (C) that I used to backup zip B. In addition to this, I'm going to get two more zips. One to backup (C) and another to keep just in case.
What's the moral to the story? Make sure you always back up your work! And, in cases like mine, backup your backup.
Karen
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An anonymous and satirical submission for your choir handbook:
My ward choir was going top-notch until we had a wave of well-meaning but untalented amateurs. These would-be choir members could not sight-read, struggled to sing a capella, and made it impossible to focus on the finer nuances I wanted to address. Fortunately, they quickly realized they were under-qualified and stopped coming. To speed things up, I made sure we did not practice any hymns. Having the choir perform or even warm up with a hymn is like water for the weeds, it gives these common-folk the impression that participating in the choir will be fun and manageable. Also, by using only unfamiliar and difficult material, you provide an excellent opportunity for the choir pianist to magnify her calling.