Post by Siana Blackwood on Mar 6, 2011 21:59:21 GMT -5
The evil hypnotic cat who demands that we all backup our novels has enlisted an unexpected friend in Randy Ingermanson. He said this:
The man (and the cat) said it. Backup your work now!
Suggestions: Email it to yourself and/or a friend. Put it on a USB. If it's already on a USB, put it on your hard drive. Put it on your iPod or whatever other storage devices you have lying around.
There are a lot of ways to have your novel rejected. An agent can tell you he doesn't think he can sell your work. An editor can tell you that your book's no good. The market can fail to recognize your genius.
Getting those kinds of rejection is just part of the great publishing game. Every writer has to face them, and face them down. They're scars of honor that all writers wear with a perverse kind of pride.
But there's one kind of rejection that no writer will ever take any pride in -- accidental loss of your novel.
There are any number of ways this can happen:
* You turn on your computer one day and hear a nasty, scraping noise. Your hard drive has just crashed.
* You're at Starbucks working on your laptop. You go to the bathroom for a quick bio-break, and when you come back, your laptop has walked out the door with a new friend.
* You turn into your driveway and see that your house is fully engulfed in flames. By the time the firefighters put out the fire, your computer is a melted mess of metal.
If the only copy of your novel was on your computer, then your work is gone. Fate has rejected that novel and now you'll never ever sell it.
That's harsh. That's cruel. That doesn't need to happen.
If you've got any important data on your computer, you need to protect it. The simple rule is to have at least two current copies of everything you write, in addition to your original.
One copy should be on a backup hard drive on your desk. The other copy should be out there on the web somewhere, securely stored far from your home.
Getting those kinds of rejection is just part of the great publishing game. Every writer has to face them, and face them down. They're scars of honor that all writers wear with a perverse kind of pride.
But there's one kind of rejection that no writer will ever take any pride in -- accidental loss of your novel.
There are any number of ways this can happen:
* You turn on your computer one day and hear a nasty, scraping noise. Your hard drive has just crashed.
* You're at Starbucks working on your laptop. You go to the bathroom for a quick bio-break, and when you come back, your laptop has walked out the door with a new friend.
* You turn into your driveway and see that your house is fully engulfed in flames. By the time the firefighters put out the fire, your computer is a melted mess of metal.
If the only copy of your novel was on your computer, then your work is gone. Fate has rejected that novel and now you'll never ever sell it.
That's harsh. That's cruel. That doesn't need to happen.
If you've got any important data on your computer, you need to protect it. The simple rule is to have at least two current copies of everything you write, in addition to your original.
One copy should be on a backup hard drive on your desk. The other copy should be out there on the web somewhere, securely stored far from your home.
The man (and the cat) said it. Backup your work now!
Suggestions: Email it to yourself and/or a friend. Put it on a USB. If it's already on a USB, put it on your hard drive. Put it on your iPod or whatever other storage devices you have lying around.
