Paranoia Sets In

bramble · Sep 29, 2008

Fingers flying, I cruised right past the quarter-mile marker (25,000 words) and finished the chapter with a flourish. I happily saved the file, checked the time- whoops, two hours past bedtime, and went to bed. Then, I got up, and checked that the USB drive saved the whole file. And I saved the file to the desktop. Went back to bed.

First thing this morning, I rechecked that all was well. At work today, I sent it to two different email addresses. Nothing y'all wouldn't do, right?

I *know* how important it is to back things up. Each day I write, I save my MS as a new file. When I caught myself wondering if I should save as different files several times during each day, I felt the sweat of obsession break out.

Is this normal? Am I developing a writing-related case of OCD? Or is my writing unleashing my inner crazy?

Grrarrgh · Sep 29, 2008

I don't think you're crazy at all. I don't know what my deal is, but I cannot hang onto a flash drive for anything. I never lose them, though. They get kicked while in the floor tower at work, bitten by the dog, broken in half, etc. I can't back my work up in enough places to ease my mind. Mr. Grr refuses to pick up anymore flash drives for me because they're such an endangered species around me.

One upside to that, though, is that on the rare occasions when I forget the flash in my computer at the office, I can still work on stuff at home because I've saved it everywhere.

Aschenbach · Sep 29, 2008

I do multiple back ups every half hour.

Better safe than sorry

bramble · Sep 29, 2008

LOL Grrr,

I saw a 4-pack of 2 gig USBs at the W-Mart and grabbed it gleefully. Then I thought, "Wait, what if they all have the same WIP-eating defect? Maybe I should get four single-pack USBs..." My SO gave me THE LOOK which jolted me back to the real world. Now, I'm toying with the idea of a 80-gig external hard drive...

Calamity_Jones · Sep 29, 2008

To be honest, I put my faith in technology. I only back up periodically (once a fortnight or so, if I can be arsed). Okay, I have reason to not worry as my hard drive is very new (< 6 months) so it is very unlikely to fail any time soon. It's a Maxtor too, which are very reliable.

I use a 512mb SD card for my backups, I've had it for about 5 years, and I've never had a problem with it. Never. Trust technology, it's perfectly reliable!

The thing is, even if you do suffer a catastrophic hdd failure, you can very possibly recover the lost data... And if you merely delete it, you have a very good chance of recovering it with little to no corruption. (Word documents are very small, assuming you are not constantly writing data, you should have no problems)

Computers are not as unpredictable as people seem to think. There is no reason that a properly maintained computer should be any less reliable than your car.

willietheshakes · Sep 29, 2008

I think I've mentioned this here before, but it might bear repeating:

I was home one night, reading an AW thread about someone who had lost a large chunk of their WIP when their computer died. And I FREAKED out -- God, I couldn't remember how long it had been since I backed up. What if my office got broken into? Or burned down? Shit, how could I have been so stupid?

I was already shoes-on and half-way up the block to my office before it occurred to me: I write LONG-HAND! In notebooks! Of course I hadn't backed up. Duh.

So, yeah, I wouldn't worry about your paranoia. Mine, on the other hand...

Calamity_Jones · Sep 29, 2008

hehe

Here's another little reminder of technology reliability. I have 14.4gb of photographs, which is 5067 files... I've been collecting them for 8 years now. The first time I backed them up was last week when I wrote a few DVD's. I've never lost a single file to hardware failure, and there's a lot of data that could be potentially lost. I have deleted files before, but a simple file recovery program whipped them back in an hour or so.

I know that people have lost data before, but there's no reason to be utterly terrified that your hdd will suddenly belch out a load of black smoke and explode at any moment.

geardrops · Sep 29, 2008

DropBox is what I use to keep my writerly-things backed up and accessible from multiple computers.

Video here.

bramble · Sep 29, 2008

Thanks for talking me off of the ledge C.J.

I just checked my WIP again, so for the moment, I'm sure you're right.

*wink*

Wow Dempsey, just watched the Dropbox demo. Right now I'm on a dial-up connection at home, but as soon as high-speed is available, I'm doing this!

melaniehoo · Sep 29, 2008

I would be careful putting ALL your faith in technology. Multiple backup locations are ideal because of little things like this.

bramble · Sep 29, 2008

Yikes Melanie, did you ever retrieve your info?

melaniehoo · Sep 29, 2008

No, but fortunately it was purely backup. Everything is still on my computer, so I need to burn a bunch of backup cds instead. I also email myself a copy of my wip after every writing session, so it's there as well.

Adipocere · Sep 29, 2008

Back it up in several ways. Get an external harddrive and keep it unplugged and unconnected to the computer to avoid viruses or worms getting into it. Keep it on a usb drive, but dont take that drive with you anywhere. Put it somewhere safe.
I keep my important files on a seperate computer, usb and external...and I also frequently send my updated writing to my mother for her to keep a copy of, just in case.
And since your work is very important, you may want to print a hard copy of every finished chapter.
I work a lot with computers so I KNOW crap happens to them. Viruses/worms can spread to your other computers on your network, computers can crash and have to be reformatted. Keep your files safe on an external hard drive that you disconnect from power and your computer after every use. And seriously consider printing out finished material. I would much rather retype something brilliant then have to re-write it entirely.

Grrarrgh · Sep 29, 2008

melaniehoo said:
I would be careful putting ALL your faith in technology. Multiple backup locations are ideal because of little things like this.

One of the flash drives I had trouble with was a SmartDIsk. Very frustrating. The light would come on, but none of the computers I use would read it. I thought maybe I had done something to it, but maybe not if others have the same problem with them.

bramble · Sep 29, 2008

Ahh! CD's! Yes and thanks!

Samantha's_Song · Sep 29, 2008

I back up in lots of different ways: Three external hard drives, one of which is a new passport drive that I can carry with me in case the house burms down when I'm not at home

A pen/flash drive. CD-roms. And I also back up all of my work onto a googlemail account by emailing it to myself every time I've written or edited anythng.

tehuti88 · Sep 29, 2008

All I have is my 8gb flash drive and the hard drive, each file saved once (to one file). If I start to focus on saving in more locations, I'll succumb to fullblown OCD (I already have a moderate case of it, and obsess over plenty of other things without needing MORE things to worry about).

That doesn't mean I don't think about it though. I wish I DID have my stuff backed up in a lot more places. On CDs. Some of which I would then store somewhere outside the house in case it catches on fire. Online, both at Google Documents and in a private LiveJournal and on my writing sites. (The only reason it isn't all saved there yet is because of our shoddy dialup connection.) On an external drive. (We have one but I never update the files there.) On hardcopy. On hardcopy which is then stuck in a Tupperware container and buried in the yard in case the house and garage and everything around them catch on fire...

Calamity_Jones · Sep 29, 2008

Oh come on people... What will you do if the world is invaded by a hostile alien species and all of humanity is subjugated and abused for their own twisted amusement?

What if the world is destroyed by a meteor?

What if a super intelligent computer takes control of the worlds nuclear arsenal and uses them to eliminate humanity so that it can rule over a dead lifeless planet until its batteries run out.

You need to prepare for every situation! Send a letter to the ESA or NASA asking them if you can send a block of titanium with your current WIP engraved upon its surface into orbit around Neptune. Monthly.

Heck, what happens if our galaxy collides with a black hole... Better have them send a copy to Andromeda too!

edit: good luck recovering that backup...

You can't be too careful!

bramble · Sep 29, 2008

Oh great, a WHOLE new level of lost work to worry about...

Clarec · Sep 29, 2008

I burn my stuff on to disc and send it through the mail to myself on a weekly basis. Since the mail system here is so slow, there's always a disc winging it's way to me with my work on it.

Clare

Clarec · Sep 29, 2008

Not really, just kidding.

Samantha's_Song · Sep 29, 2008

And a whole lot of new historical stories to write! War of the worlds and Armaggedon redone lol

bramble said:
Oh great, a WHOLE new level of lost work to worry about...

Calamity_Jones · Sep 30, 2008

Clarec said:
I burn my stuff on to disc and send it through the mail to myself on a weekly basis. Since the mail system here is so slow, there's always a disc winging it's way to me with my work on it.

Clare

Clarec said:
Not really, just kidding.

hehe

Selcaby · Sep 30, 2008

There's no need to go overboard.

I worked out two easy ways to back up, and use both.

1) Online backup, using CVS (a programmer's tool I discovered in my day job). This is just for my writing. It keeps versions of everything (that's its primary purpose) and is easy to synchronize between different computers.

2) Since I have a Mac with Leopard, I back up everything to an external hard drive using Apple Time Machine. This keeps versions, too. The hard drive sits on my desk at home and is switched off and unplugged whenever I'm not doing a backup. My writing notes, which are in a wiki running locally on my laptop, aren't in CVS, but they get backed up by Time Machine. (If you can run a private web server I highly recommend keeping your notes in a wiki, by the way.)

I try to use each of these once a day or whenever I write. When I was away from home this summer, didn't have net access and had left my backup drive at home (in case of lost luggage, y'know) I made zips of my writing and notes each day onto a thumb drive, which stayed on my person while I was travelling. The photos I took while I was away went on the thumb drive too, but everything else had to stay un-backed-up until I got home. I felt guilty.

Phaeal · Sep 30, 2008

I always send my day's work to both my active email accounts, with the date in the subject line. When it comes through, I delete the older emails.

Paranoia Sets In

Not so new, not so much a kid

Moral Marjorie

Boomer's Disposable Minion

Gentleman. Scholar. Bastard.

Boomer's Disposable Minion

Good thing I like my day job

And thus we begin the edits

And thus we begin the edits

Not so new, not so much a kid

At least I don't need backing-up

Mackinac Island Fanatic

Boomer's Disposable Minion

At least I don't need backing-up

Boomer's Disposable Minion

Writer of wrongs

Whatever I did, I didn't do it.