The paperless era of writing has at least one benefit: it has reduced the importance of owning dehumidifiers to keep manuscripts dry all year long, once they are in storage. Long gone should be movie scenes in which a strong wind robs a just-finished writer of his or her long labored-over work, destroying months of effort with a single bus-splash.
Sure, laptops can still be subjected to destruction for comic effect in a comedy, but any writer worth his or her salt knows there are many ways to back up saved files online, from buying storage space on a personal blog to something as simple as emailing the manuscript to oneself via Yahoo, GMail or one of the other popular, free online-only email services.
Any writer who doesn’t realize that by now deserves to lose at least a chapter or two to a leaky roof or a strong southern wind.
