Do you back up?

I trusted my laptop computer completely, until one day it died. As it happened, I was mid-write, working on a murder mystery play. I was on the final straight, approaching the finish line and *puff* the screen went blank. I quietly cursed my laptop as I tried to remember whether I'd saved recently. What I'd written was still fresh in my mind though so past the initial annoyance, it wasn't a disaster.

I pressed the 'On' button. Nothing happened. I checked the power supply which was fine and pressed the 'On' button again. The laptop remained lifeless on my lap. Fighting the rising panic, I tried again. Still, there was no response. My laptop was dead.

At that time, I was not in the habit of backing up but thankfully everything was not lost as my husband, an IT bod, managed to strip down my laptop and rescue the hard drive. Still, it taught me a particularly important lesson - back up your files.

I now back up on a regular basis onto a separate hard disk. It may be a bore but it's better than losing my writing. Get the backing up habit and you won't regret it.