Monday, February 9, 2009

Confusing Myself

Last night I came to the conclusion I needed to really get stuck into writing Newland over the next few months. I'll be working on that when I get home, but I thought I'd use the next day or two, whenever I find time at work, to revise Digging Up The Past and Dreaming.

I don't remember doing any work on them at home so I got to work expecting to find the latest versions here. Opening one of them, I recognised the ending needed to be changed. I then remembered having discussed that with one of my beta readers. So that means the latest version must be at home.

So I've done some work on one of them and then sent both of them home. I'll take a few minutes to track down the latest versions and organise where I'm at. Then I'll start work on Newland.

We all talk about having multiple copies of our work around the place. We back up our work to USB drive, work computers, email, webmail, online docs, and numerous other options.

How do you keep track of it all? Do you only work in one spot and back up to off-site means? Do you print off copies of each draft? Do you save each file with different numbers? How do you keep track?

I'm normally pretty good at knowing where each latest version is, but I've somehow slipped up. Anyone got some fool proof method of keeping work safe, and being able to work on it from anywhere, while keeping the different versions in order?

All suggestions appreciated.

6 comments:

  1. I try to keep my most recent versions on my home laptop. I never keep anything at work.

    I used to use Google Docs before they blocked it. And after that, my USB until they blocked that too. So now anything I write at gets emailed straight to my home email, where I'll save it when I get home.

    Though like you, I sometimes forget if I'm too lazy to do it straight away.

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  2. I just keep it all in my laptop and backup the work. I like having a computer I can bring with me wherever I go : )

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  3. I work both at home on my laptop and on the work computer. Everything I do at work is saved on a thumb drive and then saved onto my laptop at home. I never used to bother about backing up the computer but mine crashed once so now I'm paranoid about it.

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  4. I started out working on a pc from home and at work. I hated laptops. Then I got talked into giving one a go and loved it for a while. Then some brat (not one of mine) sat on it and ruined the screen big time. Times being tight, I built a new pc from parts and now work from that again.

    As soon as I can afford it, I'll be buying a new laptop, but until then, I need to figure out a way to keep everything in order.

    I use email and flash drives at the moment, but I occasionally forget to update or transfer something and that stuffs everything up.

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  5. I print out stories at times (but as they often change with each subsequent revision, I don't normally bother). Otherwise I keep a copy on my home computer and also in my hotmail account (which I can access for work).

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  6. I'm thinking about sending everything to my Gmail account.

    Does anybody know if they have mailbox size limits?

    Ben - what's Google Docs like?

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