This blog posting was already on my list of articles to write, but events of the past weekend jumped it to the head of the queue. The photo you're looking at is the interior of a close friend's house, almost completely consumed by a fire. Everyone got out and nobody was injured; many of the family heirlooms also survived. What struck me about the event was how it nearly destroyed the legacy of the man who lived in this house. This friend is a professional writer, one who has done so for a lifetime and is successful in his trade. Most of his articles and books are stored in soft copy on two computers he keeps in the house, and they were both very nearly consumed by the flames. Hindsight is 20/20, and in this case my friend will now be backing up his work and placing more of his items in the cloud, but it doesn't take a life threatening event to prompt this change.
The original concept for this article was in regards to saving time, but I want to also encompass redundancy, for obvious reasons. When I write, I do so in a shared medium (such as Google docs). For those of you who do not know, writing is not my day job, nor is it my night job. In fact, I don't get paid to write, but I do because I love it. Maybe some day it will become lucrative enough that I can write full time, but for now I am only getting my feet wet and enjoying the process of developing new stories. Because I have to do my 40 hours a week at a corporation, I found a best practice in hosting my manuscript online, which allowed me to work on my book even if I only had ten minutes of time. Now, obviously writing on a phone can be clunky and annoying, and later on my manuscript became too large for my phone to load (100,000+ words). But, I couldn't have reached that state if I had not jumped on opportunities when they presented themselves. What it boils down to is this: if you have the goal of writing, ask yourself what you have done today to work towards that goal. One of the ways you can do so, one of the ways in which you can be the best writer possible, is to make sure you can access your work wherever and whenever you want to.
On top of my manuscript, I kept several other files online where I would make small notes, explore plot ideas, and jot down things that struck me as being relevant to my work. Again, no matter where I was, I could either input to this list or retrieve information to integrate into my novel. Accessibility is key. You may not always be motivated to write (although I recommend you still do), but when the moment strikes, why not have your text with you?
After the events of the weekend, clearly the other factor is preserving your work. A fire is a terrible thing, and obviously quite deadly, but something as simple as a spilled glass of tea could put the kibosh on whatever it is you were working on. There are sometimes issues of security to deal with, but in general you are better off having your work stored somewhere offsite. This could even be a friend's computer at another residence, so long as you regularly back up the files. In this way, you won't have to pray that the hard drive on your laptop makes it one more weekend, so help me God. Your work is unique and important. Treat it as such. Put it in a digital museum, away from disaster. Make it so that when inspiration strikes, your novel is at your fingertips and you are writing before that flash of inspiration flickers and fades away. It's 2013. Write as such.
The original concept for this article was in regards to saving time, but I want to also encompass redundancy, for obvious reasons. When I write, I do so in a shared medium (such as Google docs). For those of you who do not know, writing is not my day job, nor is it my night job. In fact, I don't get paid to write, but I do because I love it. Maybe some day it will become lucrative enough that I can write full time, but for now I am only getting my feet wet and enjoying the process of developing new stories. Because I have to do my 40 hours a week at a corporation, I found a best practice in hosting my manuscript online, which allowed me to work on my book even if I only had ten minutes of time. Now, obviously writing on a phone can be clunky and annoying, and later on my manuscript became too large for my phone to load (100,000+ words). But, I couldn't have reached that state if I had not jumped on opportunities when they presented themselves. What it boils down to is this: if you have the goal of writing, ask yourself what you have done today to work towards that goal. One of the ways you can do so, one of the ways in which you can be the best writer possible, is to make sure you can access your work wherever and whenever you want to.
On top of my manuscript, I kept several other files online where I would make small notes, explore plot ideas, and jot down things that struck me as being relevant to my work. Again, no matter where I was, I could either input to this list or retrieve information to integrate into my novel. Accessibility is key. You may not always be motivated to write (although I recommend you still do), but when the moment strikes, why not have your text with you?
After the events of the weekend, clearly the other factor is preserving your work. A fire is a terrible thing, and obviously quite deadly, but something as simple as a spilled glass of tea could put the kibosh on whatever it is you were working on. There are sometimes issues of security to deal with, but in general you are better off having your work stored somewhere offsite. This could even be a friend's computer at another residence, so long as you regularly back up the files. In this way, you won't have to pray that the hard drive on your laptop makes it one more weekend, so help me God. Your work is unique and important. Treat it as such. Put it in a digital museum, away from disaster. Make it so that when inspiration strikes, your novel is at your fingertips and you are writing before that flash of inspiration flickers and fades away. It's 2013. Write as such.
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