Saturday, January 10, 2009

For Travis

Blogger and writer Travis Erwin, architect of the My Town Monday meme, suffered a personal tragedy on Jan. 4 when his home burned to the ground. It's heartwarming how the blogging community rallied to his aid, showing how well-loved and respected he is by all of us. Travis has a heart as big as his native Texas and didn't deserve this.

You can read his accounts of the fire at his blog, One Word, One Rung, One Day and/or contribute to the fundraising Habitat for Travis site set up by fellow bloggers Erica Orloff and Stephen Parrish. Click on the graphic above to access the site.

Since I heard about Travis's situation, I've been thinking to myself, what can I do to be prepared if something like this happens to me? What do I grab beside my purse and my laptop? The latter may seem like an odd choice to some people, but to a writer, losing your words is a deeply personal tragedy. Once lost, words can't always be reclaimed. My DH and I back up our computers semi-regularly, but keep the backup hard drive in a locked cabinet in the closet. I'm thinking I should buy a large flash drive, backup my files on it and take it, where? The safe deposit box at the bank, perhaps? Something for us all to think about.

In the meantime, I'm just thankful that Travis and Jennifer weren't harmed and that their sons weren't at home at the time.

Linda

2 comments:

Teresa said...

Hi Linda,

Glad you're feeling well enough to post on your blog again. I think your idea of backing up your words and keeping them in a safe deposit box is excellent, especially since you earn your pin money with your writing.

Teresa

Linda McLaughlin said...

It's not just that, Teresa, but I have so many different stories in various stages of completion on my laptop. I'd hate to lose them.

Linda