Ways to not loose any work

 The worst feeling in the world is you are halfway through a chapter or a book and your computer crashes, you didn't save the last four thousand words, and now you have to rewrite it all over again, or god forbid your laptop dies, and you can't get any of your books back, all those months spent writing for nothing. 

This has happened to me more times than I can count, tears are shred, and sometimes I never rewrite that book again. Because of this, over the years, I have made a system to make sure I never lose any of my hard work, and I am going to let you in on how I make sure not to lose any of my work.

I thought after years of my laptop going flat or completely dying on me while I was writing that I had it completely under wraps on what to do to best protect my writing. Still, during Camp NaNoWriMo 2021, I found out how wrong I was when three times throughout the thirty days, my wifi glitched out as well as google docs. Google docs refused to save my work because I was writing so fast it couldn't keep up. My wifi would glitch right as it tried to, so it would come up with an error message, one that if you dismissed it would refresh the page, but you couldn't even copy and paste any of the words before they disappeared; it was a writer's worst nightmare.

That was the real reason I decided to make this blog post because when I went searching for ways around it, It in the past and even now, I could only find one other blog post touching on this topic which really surprised me; I don't know if I was using the wrong search terms or what but whatever it was I knew I needed to let you guys in on how I protect my work.

So now, let's get down to the real answer on how to protect your work as much as possible as to not lose any words.

The answer comes in many different stages, from the saving process to the backing upstage.

The backing up stage I have completely figured out, it sounds extreme, and it can be, but since doing this, I haven't lost any of my books.

I invested in a hard drive, and I make sure after every writing session my book gets backed up to that, so if my laptop was to die, I have my work not only saved but easy to put onto my new laptop when I get one.

I also back up to google docs/google drive; that way, I can work on my books on the go as well as when my laptop blows up and not have to wait ages or lose motivation.

Now the saving process is a bit harder because you never know when you will lose work, and if you were to save your work after each word,, you oud get nothing done, that's why I thought google docs was the good place to write because it automatically backs up your work.

Now I automatically manually save my work whenever I stop writing, if that's because I am thinking of what needs to happen next or whatever the reason I stop is. There are plenty of websites you can write on that will save your writing for you, but after my experience with google docs, I don't trust it. I will also copy and paste any work I have just done onto a note pad on my laptop and save that, so if something was to happen, I have a backup.

Sadly no way is foolproof, and I know I will still lose work, but I try and do everything I can to prevent that.

How do you save your work? let me know in the comments

Writing advice

Writing can be rough at times; sometimes, we need a little extra helping hand and don't know who to turn to. Some of the best advice out there is from other authors. I went searching my brain and the web to find writing advice that I think every writer new or old needs to hear and remember.

• Beginnings matter.
• Let the story take you on adventures
• It’s supposed to be difficult.
• Write what you want to read
• Write as often as you can
• Eliminate distractions
• Just write to write
• Write now, edit later
• When writing dialogue say it out loud
• Always carry a notebook
• Don't give up
• Abandon the idea that you will ever finish but keep writing
• Skip over and come back on parts that you are strugllign with
• Know your characters

What is your writing advice? Let me know in the comments.

Links to websites I used to make this list:

https://lithub.com/i-talked-to-150-writers-and-heres-the-best-advice-they-had/

https://self-publishingschool.com/writing-tips/

https://getfreewrite.com/blogs/writing-success/writing-tips-from-famous-writers

https://www.pinterest.nz/chittockphoebe/writing/writing-tipsadvice/

Mishaps in writing: Hybrid trilogy mistake

Writing is a process; no matter how long you have been writing, you will make mistakes that can feel like the biggest thing when you realize you made a mistake, but it isn't the mistake that matters. It how you go about fixing it.

In the years I have been writing, I have made both minor mistakes and major mistakes, and recently I realized I had made a mistake while working on my hybrid trilogy, tears were shed but now that I have a plan on how to fix my mistake I decided to write a blog post on how I worked out my mistake and how I plan to fix it as well as what I have learned from making this mistake. 

While I was working on my plan for making the most out of Aprils' Camp NaNoWriMo to finish the third book in the series, I noticed that I have been stuck on a certain part of the book for ages. When I started writing Project Banshee, I struggled a lot, but by the time I hit 11k words, I was officially at a standstill.

I started looking into why this had happened, and I noticed it stems into a bigger issue—the first two books. I had so poorly planned and written Tosha that I had actually made it impossible to write a whole book for her. This is probably the biggest mistake I have made to date when writing or planning one of my books. 

The first thing I realized when I made a mistake is that I need to find a way to fix it. I could start all over again and completely start from scratch with all three books, but I have the first book almost perfect, and I would hate to have to start all over again when my goal was to have the first draft of all three books done by July. 

My first thought was I need to start from scratch but not on my books but on Toshas' book plan; I then need to think of Toshas' story as a stand-alone book and completely start the first draft over once I have finished writing the book I can then go through and edit project hybrid and project choice and fix it up so that Tosha has room to grow and fix any plot holes that form.

This will make life harder on me when it comes to editing, but it's a small price to pay compared to how it could have turned out if it didn't work out. This was a plausible way to fix the issue without completely rewriting all three books and putting years of hard work down the drain.

From this is I have learned the right amount to actually plan for a character. You don't want to under plan and be stuck on developing and writing your character, but you don't want to over-plan so that you have no room for improvising. I also learned that while the book order might be different, its best to write the books in order of age. While project banshee is the last book, its also the youngest any of the characters are in the books.

Writing Sprints

Writing sprints are very useful things to do as a writer but when you don't know what they are you can get quite confused on how to do them so I am here to help.

First, let's talk about what a writing sprint is.

A writing sprint or a word sprint is when you have to sit down for a length of time and write as much as you can in that time without stopping. you then take a five-minute break and do it again. the sprints can be for any length of time but most writers pick somewhere between five minutes and half an hour.

The benefit of writing sprints varies from increasing how many words you can write, getting your story done faster and more.

you can do word sprints on anything. there are websites like mywriteclub where you can do your sprints with friends or by yourself that will time you or you can set up a timer on your phone. during NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo you can do writing sprints on twitter. 

if you search up @NaNoWordSprints they hold word sprints every April, July and November. AuthorTubers also randomly hold live streams where word sprints are done so just do some research and you'll find the best way for you after some experimenting.

Four Things That I Wish I Knew About Writing

There is a lot I wish I knew before I started writing so I have compiled some of them to help you.

One of the major things I wish I knew is that your first draft will never be perfect and just because it sucks doesn't mean it can't be great. this was something that took me forever to understand because for the longest time I would think my writing was amazing and then I would come back and read it and it is garbage so I would throw it out instead of editing and trying to make it better.

Talking about it is so much easier. I have spent hours and hours talking to my family and even friends about the amazing book I am writing or thought of and even discuss every little detail but the minute I went to write I couldn't find the right words, how to write it the way I pictured it in my head. which brings me onto the new thing I wish I knew

Perfection isn't key, now obviously if your book doesn't have spelling mistakes it would be so much easier in the long run to edit but the first draft is just you telling yourself the story, you can edit it the way you want the book to be once you have written the book so it is better to write half pie ideas and plots then not writing at all because you want it to be perfect from the start.

Not everyone will like your work and that's okay. when you are a writer rejection is a big part of it from agents, publishing houses, friends, family and readers alike. your book won't be for everyone and there will always be at least one hater who will try and destroy your confidence but no matter what you do there will be haters and as long as you love your book don't worry what others think.

What is something that you wish you knew?

How i outline my books

outlining books can be a daunting experience, i pride myself in my Panster ways but for writing challenges like NaNoWriMo i do a brief outline and in today's post, i am going to talk over how i do my brief outlines.

first, i get a clean piece of paper in a book. i like to have a physical copy for if im travelling and don't have internet. i then like to write my characters names on one piece of paper, just there names so that i know the names off by heart and not have to scroll halfway up my book to find the name. i do make book bibles which i will get into in the future but i don't write my plans in my book bible.

i then get my black pen and start writing, any idea i can think of for my book i write down. i don't do it in any particular order nor by chapter because i feel that limits me in my writing.

by the end of it, my plan will look a lot like this

things to write in project {what ever the project name is} 

• meet Andrew
• kill beast
• date night
• get to know Andrew
• the fight scene with hunters
• learn magic powers
• find out about the supernatural world
• find out she is magic

characters

• Andrew
• Emily
• Sofia
• jack
• Patrick
• baby Ashley

that is literally it, normally my plans and one to two pages along in a 2B5 lecture book. i really do try and keep it as simple as possible so that i have the freedom to add more and move things around as needed.