Backup! We need backup!

So here's the story. At the writers group I attended last weekend, I learned something interesting. If you are writing a romance, there should not be more than 10 pages in a row where the hero and the heroine are not together. Thinking about it, this makes absolute sense. It is after all, a story about the relationship between two people.

This also threw me into a panic, because I knew for a fact I had big chunks of time where the hero and heroine aren't together. I just didn't know how many pages each chunk of time took up. I started sifting through my book.

Something strange happened. I couldn't find a scene. It was that feeling of, "Where did I put that thing." I knew I had written the scene. I knew where it should be. The scene that followed it was in place. Where was it?

It was gone.

I had this flashback to a couple of times where I had trouble saving (some sort of little warning popped up), but then the warning went away and the file opened again so I forgot about it.

Now, I remembered the warning.

My computer's memory always seems to hover on the edge of full (I have an iTunes addiction but refuse to seek help). My theory is the file made room for the new information by getting rid of some old stuff.

Here is where I rejoiced:

I had backed up my work! I don't always do this but there are some things that are just easier to back up than not. This story is one of them. After a frantic ten-minute search, I found the little folder with back-up versions and one of them had the missing scene!

Much rejoicing.

Now, I was curious. I did a bit more sleuthing and found another scene was missing! Guess where I found it? In the same backed-up file!

It may sound like I am bragging about my back-up skills, but in reality, I am just amazed this worked out. As soon as I knew my scene was missing, I had assumed it Lost Forever. More than once, I have written a school report only to have the computer crash and all my work lost. Finally, I learned the ctrl+S trick and life has become much more pleasant.

So here is my tip of the day: This very moment, pick your most favorite file (or most important file). Heck, pick all of them, and take some time for a little bit of back-up. Stick it on another computer, put it on a disk, email it to yourself, print it out. You just never know when you will be glad you did.

Now, back to counting pages.