The Must-Have Writing Routine

Extended-family-chaos. Gotta love it. I apologize for not posting this on time. I had it in draft mode a week ago, only needing a minor addition. The chaos I mentioned above made me completely forget about switching it from draft to publish mode. The same chaos kept me from the computer until way late in the day.

          There is one routine that every writer should develop. No exceptions. After the past two blog posts, you’d never expect me to say that, would you? But there it is. One thing every writer must do. Well, actually two things.

          Every writer must write. Every writer must preserve the writing.

          If you don’t write, you aren’t a writer. If you don’t preserve the writing, no one else ever sees it. You are still a writer, but writing becomes a one-time event, not something to be shared.

          Recently I decided I needed to restore my computer back to the way it had been when I first bought it. It was running terribly slow, freezing up at odd times, and generally acting “sick”. Before I did that, I backed up everything I might possibly want to save. (I’m a hoarder’s daughter and it shows in my computer files. ) Good job, Me. Right?

          Fast-forward four weeks. Four very productive weeks. Four weeks where I had written every day on at least two projects, caught up on household accounting chores and gotten my online club secretarial chores up to date. Four weeks and finally my computer was almost reset back to optimum efficiency. That evening my almost-reset computer refused to boot. No matter what we tried, we couldn’t get it to start. After trying multiple options, my husband pronounced it to be a bad hard drive. We made plans to go buy either another hard drive or a new computer (with money we don’t really have). After a call to Toshiba technical support, from whom we don’t really expect any help.

          I did my best not to stress over the fact that all that work I’d done was lost, but it was difficult. I’d not done one backup in those three weeks. A few days before the crash I’d downloaded and reinstalled Nero 7, the program we use for backing up our computers, copying discs, etc. I’d planned to back up soon. (I usually back up every 3-4 weeks .) I just hadn’t done it yet. (Bad, bad Me.)

          Fortunately, a call to the technical support for my computer yielded a suggestion for possibly salvaging my work from the supposed corrupt hard disk. (A shoutout to Daryl at Toshiba, who helped even though my computer is a couple of years out of warranty!) Whew! I found all the files I’d worked on and copied them over to a thumb drive before I restored my compute. Yet again. Well, almost all. I forgot one folder, the one with the documents of my work as secretary for my online writing chapter. I’m pretty sure I can reproduce all of the work I did, but I now realize I need a better backup plan.

          Computer-guru Husband to the rescue!

          Recently he automated his back-up process. (He had his own scare a few months back.) He stores all his important files in one folder. He backs up that one folder regularly. My computer problems made him realize he needed to automate his backup process so he doesn’t forget to do it. (He’s smart that way. ) Now, every time he shuts down his computer, the computer copies his working folder to a thumb drive before it shuts down. All he did was create a simple command program. He’s offered to let me share it with you all. (He’s nice that way. )

          The instructions are detailed and precise, but not too terribly complicated if you are somewhat computer-savvy. If you are interested in using this automated process, you may go to the Creating a Backup Command File page.

          Whether you use this process or some other, please heed my advice. Back up your work!