Gather round the computer ladies and gents it's story time.
Once upon a time, there was an event called NaNoWriMo. That stands for National Novel Writing Month if you aren't familiar. This event gathered people around the globe to write fifty thousand words in just thirty days time.
Everyone had different reasons for going on this journey. Some wanted to write for a living, and needed some motivation to complete the next project on their plate. Some wanted to try writing as a hobby. Some have had dozens of story ideas, but were never able to make themselves get to the end of the book. And some just wanted to go to write-ins and catch the word count frenzy that followed.
They all banded together in support of each other and created buddy packs to ensure they had the sustenance needed to reach the purple bar of completion. All worked diligently and through late nights to accomplish their goals.
But one writer disobeyed the cardinal rule of NaNoWriMo...BACK UP YO' SH*T.
Now. This writer saved her entire book on one thumbdrive. The book wasn't on her computer, it wasn't on cloud storage, and it wasn't saved on any other thumbdrive. She held her precious thumbdrive in high regard and knew no other device was worthy of her story.
When she didn't pour an extra a cup of coffee and leave it as a sacrificial offering, the gods of NaNoWriMo became angry with the writer. They knew the muses did not get their caffeine fix and it was about to be a serious problem. The NaNoWriMo gods possessed her cats and ordered them to destroy the book for not providing the muses with their fuel.
The cats did as the NaNoWriMo gods commanded and destroyed the computer.
The destruction was incredible.
The files were corrupted.
The storage device was annihilated.
The evening had started out as a joyous romp through wordland. The writer had planned to feed her book with thousands of new words and frolic in the beauty of the daily green bar of accomplishment. But that would not come to pass. The destruction was absolute.
But although the writer was sad, the story was still within her. She knew she could rebuild her world. She knew there was light on the other side of this tragedy, because she could create the happy ending she needed.
THE END
The moral of this story is...BACK UP YOUR FREAKING MANUSCRIPT! Put it on a thumbdrive. Save it on your hard drive. Load that bastard up on the cloud. Create a drop box account. Hell, take your novel on a field trip to a friend's house and save it on their computer!
I didn't tell you this tale of woe to scare you, but I told it to you to ensure you BACK UP YO' SH*T!
~Roxy
To find Roxy's books with buy links and what she has coming up next check out her website at RoxyRocksMe.com
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