So, you've decided to take up creative writing! You open up your preferred writing program and go to open up your last file, which is your 20,000 word first draft of a novel-- until, uh oh! An error message pops up, saying the file is corrupted, can't be retrieved, etc!
Or, say lightning strikes your house, and fries your computer--!
Or, a cat comes scampering across your computer desk, sending your computer crashing to the floor where it promptly explodes in a million prices --!
How to you avoid losing all your hard work in these scenarios?
✨By Backing up your work regularly✨
You should take steps right now with any important documents you have on your computer!
Here's some very simple ways you can back your work up, from completely free to paid services:
Each day that you make changes to your main writing document(s), make a brand new copy with the "Save-as" function, and label each one with that day's date, so you have a complete timeline of documents from day one to current day, instead of all being one single document.
Email the Docx / ODF file to yourself once a day, and if you have more than one email, or a trusted friend/family member, email it to them as well in case you somehow lose access to your account.
use Google Docs to back up your documents or for cross-platform writing, or if you use Google Docs as your main writing program, back up your writing locally to Libreoffice and all other methods mentioned above. It only takes 1 issue with logging into your account or a service outage to lose access to your work on google docs!
Use 4thewords as another online cloud service to back up your writing and write cross platform
Use A cloud drive service to back up your works once a day, such as Google Drive, Mega, One Drive, IDrive, Sync Drive, etc to back up your works once a day
Use Calibre to convert your document into an ebook format or PDF, and send it to your phone as an extra backup, and a handy way to reference your writing on the go.
use Google Docs to back up your documents or for cross-platform writing, or if you use Google Docs as your main writing program, back up your writing locally to Libreoffice and all other methods mentioned above. It only takes 1 issue with logging into your account or a service outage to lose access to your work on google docs!
