This is a public service announcement.
Did you remember to save your document?
Did you remember to back it up on the USB drive and another computer without checking “Yes” to overwrite all?
Did you remember to save your document?

This is prompted by what may have been the cause of a little lost work. (either that or I’m crazy…well, not so much “or”) Despite having statistics tracked to the end of last October, the last draft of my second novel that I possess is dated mid-October. This means a) I misplaced or mistakenly deleted the final, final draft or b) I imagined the last two weeks of work. My guess is that I had it finished and renamed the file, then went back later and deleted that file thinking it was the backup, when in fact it was the final version. I made the discovery this morning on the train ride to work when I sat down to my notebook and decided to return to editing the second novel only to find out things weren’t quite right.
Which brings me back to my public service announcement.
Did you really remember to save your document and back it up?