The Rules of Writing - #1 and #2

Robert Benchley said, "The biggest obstacle to professional writing is the necessity for changing a typewriter ribbon." Mr. Benchley died in 1945, but had he been alive, I am sure he would have sympathized with me the past 2 days while I dealt with an uncooperative computer. This leads me to a rule of writing - always back up one's work. I am diligent about this, making weekly copies of my most important documents. Living in the Sierra foothills, one never knows when a fire will force an evacuation, so I back-up my computer on a thumb drive. However, I did not back-up my monthly newsletter article for the November issue and for awhile I thought I'd be rewriting it. But all ended well.

Maybe backing up one's work is not the most important rule of writing, but it certainly is a sanity-saver. I believe the most important rule is to write and to write a lot. If you don't practice this, then you have nothing to back-up. So, if you want to be writer, write a lot. If you want to be a sane writer, back-up your work regularly.