Your Backup Plan

This morning I came down to my computer and turned it on to look up an email address. It halted halfway through the bootup process, which is very unusual. I restarted it; same thing. Called in my computer technician (that would be my husband). After spending the morning working at it and trying different things, it's working again, although my Christmas list may end up consisting of just one item, a new video card. We'll see what happens over the next few days with it.

While this was disconcerting and annoying, I couldn't stop thinking about how much worse it would be if my NaNoWriMo novel were saved only on this computer. It's not: it's backed up on my flash drive, in my Google documents, and on my laptop, as well as on another computer in the house. Sound like overkill? Maybe, maybe not. All I can say is, it was one less thing to worry about this morning. One big thing.

Coincidentally, Sue Lick's column in the current issue of The Scriptorium is about this very same issue.

If you haven't backed up your NaNo novel or anything else you're working on lately, do it now! As soon as you finish reading this post! You never know when the unexpected will jump up and bite you you-know-where, and the peace of mind is well worth the few minutes of preventive time it will take.