I’ve been in a groove lately with my current WIP. I’d just finished up my latest chapter and saved it to my flash drive. I wanted to give it some time to breathe before doing a final read through and saving it into something besides Word. Well, in an expanse of three hours the file had somehow become corrupt. I tried doing a recovery in Word. Nothing. I even tried opening the file in Notepad. That was successful but all I got was a bunch of gobbly-goop.
So adding to the mantra save and save often — save into something else besides Word too.
Other Alternatives:
- Microsoft OneNote: I loved this program. It was great for storing all of my research into sub-divided notebooks. I could be a possibility to divide various WIP chapters, but for me, not all my devices had access to to the program. That’s why I opted for something else.
- Evernote: I used this now to store all of my research as a plan A incase my hard drive decides to die. I also store finished chapters here as well (I just hadn’t gotten to it before the file became corrupt). What’s great about this program is that you can access it via the web, or the application on your device, make changes and it syncs once you’re hooked up to the web. The only draw back. Once you change something you can’t get it back.
- Ywriter: I usually save my final chapter draft in this software. I love the fact how it breaks everything down into scenes, since that’s the way I write anyway. Once you’re finished you can convert the chapter to RTF, HTML or ebook.
- Notepad: A simple, no-nonsense way to keep notes. It can be converted into to other documents. Probably a good thing to have if all you want to do is make a back up before you lose everything.
L.M. Elm, Historical Novelist 