Photo by Stuart Pilbrow , via Flickr Recently a writer friend of mine lost all her work when her computer crashed – because she had no backup. This is every writer’s nightmare. Just the thought of it makes me shiver. Her experience reminded me of a story I once read about Ernest Hemingway. (I don’t know how true it is, because of course I didn’t actually know Ernest Hemingway, but truth or fantasy, the message of the story is the same.) Anyway, the story goes like this: Hemingway had just finished a novel, and packaged up the only copy and gave it to his then-wife. This was way before computers, and maybe even carbon paper – or Hemingway didn’t feel like using carbon paper, I don’t know. Anyway it was the only copy. He asked his wife to mail it to his publisher in New York, while he went off to chase the bulls in Pamplona or something. Well, his wife got on the train to Paris, taking the novel with her and meaning to post it to New York once she got to Paris – but she had ...

My name is Helen Ginger and I’m addicted to my computer. I had never thought of myself this way until a month ago when my computer crashed, black-screened, nada, nothing, dead as a doornail. My worst fear. If you’ve ever experienced that, it probably became your nightmare as well. Fast forward a month and I’m still without my computer. I’m waiting. Patiently. Okay, not so patiently. My iPhone is not suited to checking and writing email. I can get some things done on my iPad and, when my husband’s out of town, I can use his computer. There are things even his computer can’t do. Only my computer has Dreamweaver on it, the software I use to update my site weekly. Or…used to update weekly. Not only am I an editor, I’m a writer. Part of that “worst fear” of losing my computer is that the tech guy may not be able to retrieve all my data, including the manuscript I was working on. The good news is that I immediately emailed my friend and fellow editor to see if she still had the copy I ha...

It’s a new year and an excellent time to put new routines in place. One habit that sometimes gets overlooked is regularly backing up your manuscript in progress. At least some of your back-ups of your documents should be done “off site”; i.e., off your main computer and away from the building that houses your main computer. You need to cover yourself for any possibility from viruses to fire to theft. There are many options for backing up, and the more variations you use the safer you are likely to be. Some quick and easy options are to: Save copies onto an external hard drive that you or someone else keeps at their home or office. You may want to rotate two or more hard drives this way so that one is always off site and you have a drive available for backing up when you need to. Save your current most important files onto a flash drive and take it with you if you leave the house. Pay an Online Data Backup Company for storage for your most important files. (Please do plenty...