August 14, 2012

Hi friends & writers!

I once heard a yoga teacher say: “We come this earth empty-handed, and we will leave this earth empty-handed, so there is nothing to lose, nothing to worry about, nothing to fear.”

Beautiful words – and words I find difficult to follow when it comes to my written work. My jewelry lays out in the open, my car mostly remains unlocked (please do not forward this to any potential thieves!) Those things are replaceable, my logic goes. But I fear my inability to rewrite something I have lost.

This week my computer has been flashing and freezing strangely, enough to make me feel the mortality of my writing if my computer were to crash. Even the language of computer crashes is akin to the euphemisms of life and death: what if “something happens” or everything “goes dark”? And so this Tuesday Writer deals with the seams of backing up work.

PROCESS: BACKING UP FILES, THREE WAYS:

1) A USB flash drive (also called thumb drive) is easy, as you can carry it around and it will hold quite a bit. 2) Another idea is a service such as Dropbox that stores files in the endless ether of the web. 3) A variation of that theme is to send a file (or folder, compressed) via email to yourself – or better still, to a friend/reader, or to a venue. That way, if “something happens,” you will at least have the file in your sent mail.

Try this: Set a back-up schedule and remind yourself to do it. It could be each time you complete something new, or at the end of every month, week, or day. 

FEATURED VENUE: DROPBOX

Dropbox is not a venue per se, but a useful and free place to keep work until it can be sent out. Make an account here: www.dropbox.com

PROMPT

Think of something that you have written before – but please do not look at it! Now write about it again, trying to replicate what you’ve written already, but also allowing yourself to add in new ideas. (10 min)