Data File Management

It has been three months since my last post in which I officially announced my writing journey. The reason for this particular blog was to record said journey. In the words of my dear friend, Posh, "FAIL." I shall promise to be more attentive in the future.

Upon reading others' writing journals, the familiar voice of doubt began to seep to the front of my thoughts. Their blogging contained historical information, subjects worthy of workshop moderation, tips from inside "the business" (publishing world), and the like. The thought struck me, if I remained only within my genre, following suit with other writers, fairly soon readers would exclaim, "The only subject on which Greyson blogs is SEX." Which, I might add, isn't necessarily a bad thing.

This is my journey--it will be sexy, erotic, groused, frustrating, fun and full of folley.

And speaking of folley, I should share a recent scare, that I am sure, every writer in the business has experienced at some point or another. CORRUPTION. I am not speaking about underhanded deals, plagarism, or broken contracts--I am speaking of file corruption--the kind that sends one's heart racing and stomach in full reversal.

Error: Please select a format in which to open your file.

!?!?!?!!!

In today's world of electonics, data is nowhere unless it is in TWO places--meaning both hard storage media and physical location. A back up copy in the same location as the computer is not "two places." I keep a copy of my writing on a separate jump drive which I carry with me. One never knows when one will have a few spare minutes to jot down a line or two, so the perks are two-fold. (And yes, there are copies on one other computer, including an occasional email to myself.)

Last Wednesday found me on a four-hour airplane ride with nothing to do but write. Imagine the horror to plug in said jump drive only to be greeted with the above error. 33,000 feet is not the place in which to experience the terror of possibly having a corrupted file. Not only could I not use the spare time to work on my current ms, but I had no idea whether the original file on my computer (half way across the country and 33,000 feet below me) was corrupted--six weeks of writing and editing potentially lost.

After eduring an entire week of suspsense, I arrive home to find the file intact. The issue? Originally the file was saved down to a Word 97 format. Somehow I managed to save it back up to a Word 2007 document. The laptop which accompanied me on the flight runs Word 2003 and does not contain the logic to open a file created in Word 2007.

Crisis over.