Save Your Precious Finished Article Somewhere Permanent And Safe Before You Post It -- Don't trust the vagaries of Markdown!!

Don't send your precious composition off into the wild blue!!
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Off we go ... into the wild, blue yonder
My first rant of the day

I just read @arbitrarykitten's cautionary tale of losing her 2000 word post in Markdown when she pushed the "post " button and saw the whole thing disappear.

You can read about it here.

Steemit has been having its troubles lately -- and to watch your original, carefully composed work disappear into the wild blue is enough to make a serious writer take up serious drinking. Here's the comment / rant I composed (and saved while writing it in another program!!) in answer to the lamentations I found there and in her comments section. If this puts cheetah all in a lather ... tough. Here's the advice as it poured out of my fingers onto the screen ... for anyone who needs it.

You can ignore it and keep on doing what you're doing if you like. Life is all about choices. My husband will. And the next time he loses a document and swears a blue streak, I'll call him an idiot. And once again, he'll fail to learn. Writing this, I remind myself that living with him is also a choice. Take that, too, for what it's worth.

Having been a writer for decades I always write my original documents in a word processing program. For the last several years I've used Libre Office. Every bit as good as Word AFAIC ... and free!! Find it. Download it. Learn to use it. OMG!!

Libre Office

I would never dream of trying to compose something in Markdown! Back in the early days of computers, I would even print out all my documents so that I could retype one if something went wrong -- with a disc (remember floppies??) or with my computer program. (My then-husband started me out on WordPerfect, which was an absolutely horrible program, notorious for screw-ups during "automatic background save" -- the system would freeze, and notorious, too, for the BSOD for absolutely no reason whatsoever.)

I developed the habit in those days of hitting Ctrl+S every time I even pause to consider my next word or phrase. It's second nature to me now, and I have never been sorry. I haven't lost more than a sentence or two in a document in years. Not even in the unexpected power outages we have here in our very rural location!

(I've tried to get my now-husband to develop this habit, but he won't listen. He has fixed ideas in his head about how computers should work ... and he won't adjust his reality to accommodate how they really do work. So, I just tune out the background swearing and go on with my life.)

Since coming to Steemit, I've also begun writing my comments on a saveable page in Libre Office ... because when I have something to say, I can go on and on and on. (Can you tell?) And losing something I spent more than 15 seconds writing is not a risk I'm willing to take. I, too, learned "the hard way" back when disasters really were not my fault.

Online as in nature, your ability to survive depends on your ability to adapt, and anything you can do to insure your safety is time and effort well spent. Those few minutes you save when you make it easy on yourself will be lost many times over with your next major disaster. Make disaster recovery / disaster prevention one of your missions in life.

In those early days I also learned how much I loathed having to recompose a lost document that I'd already written. They were never as good the second time around (for some reason) ... and I can remember several times when I just shrugged and moved on, leaving the essay lost forever.

I once read a biographical piece on Hemingway that told of how he lost the finished manuscript of his very first novel in a briefcase he forgot and left on a train. Though I never much cared for Hemingway's writing, even I could empathize with the devastation of that moment. The cheapest, most valuable education you can ever gain is learning from other people's mistakes. I learned from his. (Backups, backups, backups of your backups.) Learn from this one. It's the greatest gift you'll give yourself as a writer ever!!

If you prefer a plain-text editor, which I use to format html or to format FOR Markdown -- using their styling, here are two free options:
NoteTab -- for Windows -- the one I prefer
Kate -- originally for Linux, now also available for Windows (honestly, I use them both)

Original images used under this Creative Commons license or this Creative Commons license and modified by added text.

BTW, if you're a serious writer but still a small fish in the big Steemit pond, this may interest you. Right now, I curate for this community ... and we are looking for people who love to write and do it well. Artists, musicians and other creatives will also find a warm welcome here. If you'd like to join our growing group of great content creators ... read on. (We have a backlog of applicants presently. If you haven't had a response in a few days, get back in touch with me here and I'll rattle somebody's cage.)

Have you heard about The Unmentionables?

The Marines are looking for a few good men, but we at The Unmentionables are looking for a bunch of good writers, artists and other creative souls on Steemit. If you know you produce good content, and you know it's undervalued, and you really want more exposure to and from other great folks like you, following their passion and doing fine work ... check us out.

The Unmentionables is a fun-and-friendly writing, creating and curating group. We love to see good stuff from ourselves and others who are making a positive contribution to the quality on Steemit. We love to show off what we do ... and support the treasures we've found.

Would you like the chance to see one of your posts featured here? You can join us by filling out a simple form with a few quick questions. Find us here: @unmentionable. Apply to join us here. It's quick. It's easy. And you'll be glad you did. Three of the best reasons I can think of off the top of my head! One of our existing members will have a look at the work on your blog ... or if you know an existing member, get them to vouch for you. (That saves everyone a lot of time!)

Fill out an application if you're interested in joining us. Once again, it's quick. It's easy. Maybe we'll discover we have a new family member and you'll discover you've found a new home. Everybody wins ... 'cause that's what we're about.

Learn more about The Unmentionables here!