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Craft of Writing

Katerie Prior

The Mixed Blessings of Data Loss

A few months ago, a power surge zapped my laptop computer. One moment, I was working on my novel, and the next, I was shouting, Nooooooooooo! to a darkened screen as I hit the CTRL+ALT+Delete keys.
 
When I took my computer into the repair shop, I received the good news/bad news. My computer could be fixed, but I would lose everything on it. “Did you do any backups?” the kid behind the counter asked me. I struggled to do a quick mental inventory. A few things were on disk. One or two stories were printed and some of my work was handwritten.
 
Aside from those few things, however, the amount of work I lost was staggering to imagine. A list of publications that I queried and who responded. Electronic copies of stories I wrote for a now-defunct magazine. Articles I was going to submit, ideas for my Web site, my first novel, several in-progress screenplays, plans for my short stories. All lost. I could barely shake my head "no" to the repair tech’s question.
 
When I told people about my computer, in addition to sympathy, nearly everyone told me their own story of losing something significant. I was also comforted to know many famous authors have a tale about losing an important piece of their work. Hemingway was traveling when he finished his first novel. The suitcase containing this first opus was lost during the trip and never recovered. 
 
These days, writers don’t need to travel to lose their work. With viruses, power surges, and file corruption, authors risk losing not only a single piece but a significant amount of writing and related material by just turning their computers on. As writers, we should value our work enough to protect it from everything. That means taking the time to protect the main tool we use to create and refine our product—our computers.
 
If you haven’t lost your writing yet, consider yourself lucky. But don’t be fooled into thinking that your good fortune won’t run out. Whether you lost your work at some point or not, you should follow these guidelines to safeguard both your computer and your stored writing.
 
Back Up Your Work Now
Maybe it’s been months since your last backup or you have just never had the time to do it. Either way, make some room in your schedule immediately to back up all of your work. Grab a couple of floppy disks or, if you have a CD burner, a CD and begin saving your files. Once complete, check the CD in another computer to see that the files are stored. By "check the CD," this means actually opening the files, not simply looking at the CD's directory in a file browser like Windows Explorer; being able to open a file and see all of its contents reassures you that the file wasn't somehow corrupted. Then, put these disks in a safe place where they won’t get scratched or damaged.
 
Back Up Your Computer
When you turned your computer on for the first time, you may have seen a system message asking you to create a recovery disk. If you don’t remember seeing this message, chances are you didn’t make a recovery disk. 
 
When your system is unable to start normally, either from a virus attack or other problem, the recovery disk is able to restore most files pointing to software and other programs on your computer. Although you may have already completed this step, you may want to re-create this disk again since the recovery also saves personal settings and history. Since each system is different, review the Help documentation on your computer for more specific information on creating a system recovery disk.
 
Create A Backup Schedule
Now that you have the files saved and a recovery disk created, set a date for your next backup and stick to it. The length of time you choose depends on the way you work, although the timeline should be within one to three months.
 
Of course, there may be items you work on that you frequently update, and losing the changes between backups would be distressing. You may want to save these to a floppy disk, print them, or e-mail the files to yourself. If you are working on a longer document such as a book or a screenplay, consider purchasing a memory stick. These devices plug into any computer with a USB port and provide 64MB to 128MB of storage.
 
Protect Your Computer
While backups protect your work, you should also make sure to protect your machine during use. Your computer should never be on without being plugged into a surge protector. Power surges can also come through the phone lines, so if you are using a dial-up connection, unplug the phone line from your computer when you are not browsing the Internet.
 
Your computer also needs active and regularly updated virus protection installed. Both McAfee and Symantec provide reasonably priced software and subscription services for updated virus definitions (which are what anti-virus software uses to detect and block viruses).

In addition to viruses, hackers and crackers can sneak a peak at your computer if you are online. With this in mind, consider installing firewall or Internet security software on your machine.
 
If the worst does happen and your computer crashes, don’t despair. For writers, being forced to go back to the drawing board sometimes provides opportunity. Although the loss of a novel was probably devastating to Hemingway, many academics debate about what may have happened if the young author had not lost this first novel. If he published this first, probably unsophisticated work, would he have been as good of a writer?
 
The loss of work can be devastating or alleviating. As I drove home from the computer repair shop, I lamented that I had lost nearly three years of work. But all my stories were still in my head. I could always work on them again. Or not. In some cases, I had stopped developing them when I lost my fervor for them. Since they were gone, I could let them mercifully slip back into the creative ether and focus on the few selections I had.
 
Ultimately, that was the mixed blessings of data loss. Losing my work taught me to protect it as well as be willing to let go of it. When my writing works, I save it. When it doesn’t, I’m more apt to create a fresh document and try again. Sure, I’ve lost valuable hours of time to get that point, but it’s worth it. I just think of what might have happened to Hemingway if he hadn’t lost his suitcase.


About The Author
Katerie Prior is a freelance and fiction writer from Michigan. Her articles have appeared at Techies.com, Garden and Hearth, SheKnow.com, and Renaissance magazine. Her fiction has appeared at WordRiot.org, Fiction Warehouse, and The Generation X Journal. She also maintains The Writer's Confidant Web site.