I’m making dinner and reading about “giving my wardrobe a wake-up call” because, dude, I need that. Where do, you know, girls shop? Not Target. I know about Target. Where do girls shop who need people to think they know what they’re doing, you know, career-wise?

Change of subject card. (One person will know what I’m talking about, but it’s worth it.)

I’ve started emailing myself the document that has my book—yes, the entire dang thing in one file—every evening after I get done writing. There’s a writer out there who lost all his work and had to start over, and I think Hemingway had a missing suitcase of work once. But can I tell you a secret? I am not Hemingway. If I lost the book file at this point, I don’t know if I’d start over. I think I’d write a different book, but I think every paragraph I tried to recapture, I’d sit there, frozen, and think: This was so much better the FIRST TIME I WROTE THIS. So it wouldn’t work.

I had a little scare like that a couple of years ago. Greg and I went to Maui, and I’d just had this great encouraging thing happen, writing-wise (I can’t remember what it was, or I’d tell you). So I took my computer. I was all I’m going to WRITE on MY vacation. And I did, too. A little bit, and the next day my computer was missing from where I’d left it. Stolen. I ended up not losing very much at all, just a little bit of academic stuff for which I’d already been graded, but it scared the living crap out of me. Somewhere out there is a bootleg copy of half of the book I’m still trying to finish. (If you find it, and want to finish it for me, just let me know.)

I back up more frequently now, but seriously? Every day, when I finish my little thousand words (or more!), I email the whole thing to myself. I’m too close to let some disaster befall. I used to work at a computer lab, and you wouldn’t believe the number of students who came in with the only copy of their master’s thesis or honors paper, one tiny little floppy disk (ask your parents)—only to have the thing go sad Mac face on them. That crunch noise? Was the sound of their paper bag hearts crumbling in front of me. Luckily my boss was the best computer dude in the world at the time—”you leave Wayne alone! We like him!” (Sorry. That’s for the same person.)—and he could sometimes help. Sometimes.

Where was I going with this? Hmm. I don’t remember. Today’s afterschool special: Back up your files, because Wayne isn’t here to help you.