The Importance of SAVING your work...

So, let me just say that everybody knows to save their work. I know this. You know this. It's not a hard thing to do. Right? Yeah, how we about talk about saving your works in more than one place?

I know. I admit it. I saved my work on a flash drive and only a flash drive. In my mind, I was thinking that by keeping it on the flash drive, I wouldn't have to worry about losing anything if my laptop was hacked (which it was), if it was infected with malware (which it happened), or if the hard drive crashed (Oh God, where's the wood for me to knock on?) Okay, so the last one hasn't happened yet.  YET.

Seven months of work~ I am almost completely finished with my 2nd book and I am super-excited about it. It is GREAT. I love it....

I can't open the file on the flash drive because suddenly it has become corrupted.

I tried for hours to get it back... and then cried for another hour because I couldn't. This happened on a Saturday night so there were NO computer shops open. I patiently waited (insert the words panic, hyperventilate, insanity... you pick) until Monday morning for the shops to open and was at the door waiting, flash drive in hand.  Thankfully, the pc guy I use is a pc God.  It took him a few hours (he had never retrieved anything from a flash drive before) and he got almost the entire file back. He only lost about three thousand words. 

Don't worry, I had a hard copy of the missing file but the rest of the hard copy was gone. Where, you ask?  Ask my daughter's cat....   Now I am working on editing and finishing up the last few chapters. Just so you know, it is now saved on a new flashdrive... and my computer's hard drive.  My lesson has been learned.  Now I just need to redo my hard copy....