My laptop was stolen the week before Christmas. I know! Other things were taken as well but they got my freaking laptop! And of course it contained all of my published and in-process manuscripts, notes, story outlines, character sheets, maps… You name it, I probably had it. What’s the risk of identity theft when compared to that? Damn right.
Everything had been regularly backed-up on a flashdrive so nothing’s really gone, but still. One flash drive. One. Without it the game would truly be over. (Yes I have hard copies too but they’re paper. Paper!) So now I’m fretting about back-ups to the back-up. Are three drives enough? Nine? Thirteen? One stashed in the sock drawer, one in the kitchen with our secret herbs and spices. Maybe a few tucked among the plastic sleeves of my Silver Age comics, or in one of those drug-mule cavity baggies if I can muster up the courage. At least I’d always know where they are. Maybe all that’s required for some peace of mind is a little squirt of lube. I wonder if I should trim a bit first…
The cloud is your friend. I work off of five different programs: Simplenote, Pages (iWork on the iPad automatically backs up to iCloud), Notes, Dropbox and Google Drive. Then I back everything up on the home computer. But no matter what happens to any of my devices, nothing is lost. That’s my recommendation.