I’m developing quite a store of writerly stuff, and the only place it’s all saved is my Mac. Let’s call her Madge.

Last week, our house was threatened by a leak in the roof. It’s worse than it sounds: we are lucky the power to the lights tripped out before the ceiling ignited.

This event inspired a conversation that went a little something like this:

‘What are you doing to back up your novels?’ my husband asked.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘You don’t store them to the cloud?’
‘I don’t trust the cloud.’
‘So you’re not doing anything to back up externally?’
‘Sometimes I email them out,’ I said. ‘I could retrieve some of my files from email.’
‘Um… You don’t encrypt the files before you send them though, do you?’
‘Don’t say it. I know.’
‘But you don’t trust the cloud.’
‘No.’
‘You should be backing up. How big are your files? At least use a USB…’

While Madge has treated me well over the years, she’s not immune to theft or damage. It makes sense to have a regular, external back-up plan in place but this takes research and effort — even using a USB requires elsewhere placement to be a true disaster recovery plan — and I don’t know where this effort is best placed.

Dear reader, do you trust the cloud? What do you do to safeguard your precious files?