Stop and Save

Warning: This post is silly.

Earlier this month, I had the immense honor of attending the first ever NerdCon: Stories—a two day writing conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota featuring some of my favorite, young adult writers.

There were panels, there were signings, there were famous authors reading their adolescent and angst-filled stories and poems, and there were drag races. Yes, drag races where our beloved John Green caught fire! If you don’t believe me, see my tweet (pictured) or Google because it happened.

And, while I was watching John Green’s car burn (twice), I thought, It’s a good thing he saves his work*. Let me rewind the day’s events.

Earlier that afternoon, I sat in on the “Nerdfighter Q&A” panel featuring John Green, his brother, Hank Green, and the hilarious and intelligent Maureen Johnson as their moderator. Between laughs and John locking Hank out of his own iPhone, brother-style, an audience member asked how Hank’s book was coming along, and he replied (and I paraphrase), “It’s going well. That is, if I can get the book off my broken laptop.”

“Wait,” Paraphrased-Maureen-and-John said, aghast, “you didn’t back up your book?”

That’s right, folks. Hank Green—the Internet mogul, video blogger, curator of NerdCon, brother of very famous writer, general man of mystery—didn’t save his work.

To be fair to Mr. Green, he was writing using writing software; however, he didn’t back up said software.

Luckily for Hank and the world, it looks like he’ll be able to retrieve the book from the incapable laptop with the help of geniuses. Yet, I think there is a lesson here, and that lesson is simple: Save your work.

Personally, I thought this was a very obvious thing that everyone knew in 2015, but if a man who shares DNA with John Green forgot to do it, perhaps there are others out there making the same mistake.

So, how do you save your work? No, I’m not going to talk you through how to save a file (Step one: click the floppy disk; Step two: if you don’t know what a floppy disk is, Google). Instead, I’m going to link to a slew of programs and tools for writers to help you write and save your work. And then I’m going to remind you to back up your files, so consider yourself reminded.

I would provide a lesson on these tools, but that would make me a total hypocrite, as I don’t use them. I’m super old fashioned; I still use Microsoft Word and save the docs to my email. But before you judge, know this: THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT JOHN GREEN DOES (he said so in the panel), and any comparison to John Green is just fine with me.

So, happy writing, friends. But more importantly, happy saving.

*Actual thoughts were: 1) He can’t die! He’s got too much writing left in him! 2) WAIT, DOES HE KNOW HE’S ON FIRE?! 3) Some curse words I can’t say on this blog because wholesomeness.