My wife’s laptop fell on the floor a few days ago. After that, it wouldn’t start up. She had about 60,000 words of a novel-in-progress on that computer.

She came to me, looking scared, saying “it would be very bad” if that data couldn’t be recovered. She had assumed that I was making periodic backups of her hard drive, because I’m the computer person in the house . . . but once the thing hit the floor, she realized that that was an assumption rather than certain knowledge.

Her data is, in fact, fine. But this post isn’t about her. Are you backing up your writing somewhere?

Do it. Do it now. Tomorrow, do it again.

  • Use an online backup service like Mozy.
  • Use a simple external hard drive. (Get one bigger than you think you need today, because in 2 years it’ll be too small.)
  • But do it. Back up your writing. NOW!