What Is Your Back Up Plan?

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Sometimes even the best plans have hitches. For example, these weekly articles I write about the writing life. For many years, I've been writing and putting up these articles. Ahead of time I write the article, set up the details and check it. Then early on Sunday morning, I check to see if it worked.

 

Last week, I went to my blog—and nothing was posted. Behind the scenes, I checked and my post had a headline but nothing else. The day before I had carefully written my article, added links like my ClickToTweet and others. I had checked everything and scheduled it to go live online. Yet my article was not there. It was completely blank.  

Many writers in this situation would panic. I did panic for a few minutes but then I sat down and went to work—because I had a back up plan. While I rarely use this back up plan, it is there and something I'm going to explain in this article so you can create your own back up plan.

 

For years, I've been writing my original articles in a different program—reviews, articles and blog posts. My back up didn't have everything—but had the majority of the information. Years ago for my blogging, I began to use a program called BlogJet and that's where I had my original article. In fact, I use this program to keep my ideas and notes for future blog articles. 

Some of these notes are never used. Throughout my day when I get an idea for an article, I will often go to BlogJet and create a new file, then scratch a few words of an outline. Later I use this outline to craft my article. When I looked for my blogpost and nothing was there, I turned to my article on BlogJet which had most of my original article. I still had to re-do some of my work but not all of it to put it into place.

 

Back-up Is For More Than Blog Articles

 

I've written over 1,100 reviews on Amazon and over 700 reviews on Goodreads.  I begin the process writing my review in a Word document—not online. I craft my review in this document, sometimes even print and read it later then rewrite before I post it on Amazon and Goodreads.  I create my reviews in this way because it gives me a back up place.

 

Through my decades in publishing, there have been a few rare times  I've lost writing and it is painful to have to recreate something. I've learned the hard way the importance of planning a back up plan ahead of time. It's a simple concept to write and preserve your material in another location than the online place but a regular part of my practice. Then when the rare day like last week happens, I don't panic and can still meet the deadline.

 

I captured this experience in this article as a part of my writing life to help you. What do you have as a back up plan for your writing or online work? Let me know in the comments below.

 

Tweetable:

When something unusual happens in your writing,  what is your back up plan? This prolific editor and author gives the details of how he handles this writing situation. (ClickToTweet)

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