As an illustration student it was drilled into me that you must regularly save your work. Computers crash and discs and hard drives fail - save two copies, save three, save after every tiny edit on photoshop.

I've never lost work as an illustrator, and I've tried to take this lesson through to my writing. I work on my WIP in two different locations on two different machines, as well as occasionally on my phone. In order to have a constant, growing back up which I can access from anywhere, I've taken to writing on an email which I send to myself every few hundred words. This way, should both my computers blow up, and should I drop my phone down the toilet (It's almost happened! More than once!), I have copies in my sent emails as well as my inbox.

I've been using this method of backing up work for years, and it saved me when my computer crashed while editing my almost-complete dissertation and the only copy I could load up was the one I'd emailed myself an hour previously. Unfortunately though, I can't protect myself from my own stupidity.

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