Hi everyone! I'm sure it's happened to most good writers for the Times. You've been writing a really long article and suddenly something like this happens . . .

- You try and send the email and it tells you that your login has expired
- You accidentaly press a button which triggers "Select all," then without realizing you press another button which deletes the whole thing.
- Your computer crashes.
- Your ISP goes.
- Some other horrible catastrophe.

Don't worry, they've all happened to me, in fact it just happened to me! But, there are many ways to prevent this.

First, I'd suggest writing your article as a document first (using something like Word, or Notepad depending on the progrmas on your computer). Keep saving it as you do it, every other paragraph or something. Then, even if your computer crashes or you do accidentaly delete all of it then you still have a good copy of it.

This is the best way to do it because it doesn't need an internet connection and you aren't at risk of anything disconnecting or logging out. Also, most of these have spellcheckers (winks).

If it's too impractical to do that then write it on an e-mail program that you can do drafts on. This is like saving but you don't have to go through the business of naming it. I usually use this way (because I'm lazy) and at one point made 40 drafts of one article!

Third, be careful. It's extremely annoying to lose an article that you've spent a lot of time on. Don't leave an article unsaved alone on a computer and make sure that if you do save it you know where it is.

This is Cobd, mourning her lost articles.