A way with worlds: 08 - Your Worlds are in Danger!

DATA - WHAT YOU DIDN'T THINK OF:
You're ready to store your World and writing information and . . . you didn't think of a few things. Besides just your stories and your notes on your world, what about?

1. Links to resources you may need?
2. Email of friends/readers/editors
3. FTP addresses and passwords for your website
4. MIRC server information for chats
5. Passwords or things you may need for websites.
6. Downloads that may be hard to find or are discontinued.
7. You're going to want a way to record this information so you can get to it in case you need to.

BACKING UP - THE THRILLING EXPERIENCE:
Backup regularly and check your backups.

Sounds easy of course, but its also easy to get out of a good schedule, so set one up for yourself and enforce it. If you built a world, if you built an epic, losing it due to bad timing is a humiliating and disheartening experience. It’s your work - take the time to take care of it.

Make sure you're backup media is stored in a safe place. That too sounds like obvious advice, but its easy to just stick something on a shelf and forget about it.

Organize your backups by dates so recovery is easier. Label your disks or jewel cases or tapes with their dates and perhaps contents. If you're backing up different data at different times, try to make sure you are well-organized.

PRINTING OUT: KILLING TREES FOR SECURITY
Printing things out is an often-ignored method of backup. However, as you cant demagentize paper or scratch its writing layer, it's a good idea to keep printouts of stories, concepts, etc. as well.

I recommend having a filing cabinet for your work. You can even purchase cheap, plastic one-drawer boxes at many stores. Set it aside for your work and your work only.

BACKUPS: THINGS YOU MAY NOT THINK OF:
A few things to keep in mind when backing up:

1. Is it necessary to back up a website all the time? If there's one on the site and one on your computer, the chance both will be destroyed is more limited. Besides, it keeps you from having to save a big site all the time. A website is its own backup, so you can probably back up less often and save time.
2. Offsite storage is not a bad idea. There are sites that provide limited amounts of it, such as http://www.freedrive.com/.
3. If you use a lot of clip art, you probably don't have to back it up if you have the CD's or web pages you use. Unless its vital to have it right away in an emergency, it may just be extra bits on a drive.
4. Zipping files may be worth it to save space. Just check the integrety of the zip files and make sure you have an easily available copy of your zip program.

SUMMARY:
You're going to put a lot of work into your world and your writing.

You can loose that data.

Don't.

Enough said.

NEXT COLUMN:
Rectcon as continuity?

Take a trip to my own alternate world, the Crossworld of Xai, at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/xai/