Today is the official “Back Up Your Novel” day. The friendly reminder that all can be lost, so don’t let it be.
Save on to a disc, a flash drive, or the Cloud™. I personally use Google Drive and rarely have had an inconvenience, and never had a true problem with them. If you belong to another ecosystem already, like Dropbox, then use it. The peace of mind is unparalleled.
I’ve come into the habit of working directly into Drive. It’s maybe not the best habit, as my Internet Service Provider is awful and can’t guarantee me a stable connection, but it helped me far more than annoyed me.
Don’t think you’re safe because nothing bad has happened in awhile. The first day of NaNoWriMo my computer locked up. I went to put it to sleep, and as the screen turned off the computer remained on. It was on, but the screen never responded. This never happened to me before, and I had just finished nearly 1,000 words of my story.
Luckily, Scrivener auto saved for me, so when I had to force the computer to shut down, I didn’t lose any progress. It goes to show you never can be too safe. Save right now, and later tonight save again. Be responsible, you crazy kids.