Here's a couple of things you can do to start off. Others might have different or better ideas.
One, get into the habit of making your own backup on your computer. It could be as simple as doing a "save" and "save as" when you're ready to quit working, or whenever you've done a lot of work. The save will store what you've done, the "save as" will be a backup copy. You can use the file name and date for the backup copy. That way, if something happens, you will at least have a fairly recent copy of your file handy. And, sometimes, you can do something and down the road decide you wish you hadn't, such as deleting a whole chapter because it didn't fit with the storyline, and then deciding two weeks later that the chapter did work ("Oops, I didn't have a paper copy or a backup copy . . . I've got to rewrite the whole chapter!"). Don't worry about deleting the backup copies until later.
Two, sign up for a free online backup, such as Mozy. Mozy wants to sell you their service, of course, but you can use it for free up to 2GB (that is a LOT of Word files). Just be sure you set it to only backup your Word files. If you need to backup pictures or videos you will need something else. Once it's set, Mozy will run automatically so you won't have to remember to backup your files. Mozy runs in the background and doesn't use a lot of your memory or CPU compared to other pieces of software. You could also get a free e-mail box (Yahoo, gmail, whatever) if you don't have one, and mail copies to yourself. Create a folder and save the copies there.
Those are two things you can do right away; they're fairly simple and don't cost anything. Of course, you can get much more sophisticated about it, but those two alone will help, because . . . things do happen.
And for future reference, if you happen to have a hard drive crash, don't immediately panic. Often files can still be copied off a bad drive. At that point you will probably need a computer expert to install a new drive and migrate the files off your old drive. It won't help if your house burns down, but at that point you'll probably have other things to worry about. ;-)
