Nothing is more frustrating than mustering the creative juices to write something, then losing it before it is safely saved in a secure location.
Here are some tips on how to keep your sanity while contributing content to the Village Chandler Guild web site. (These tips generally apply to any web browser-based content authoring you might do anywhere on the web.)
First, let's understand the 'fragility' of browser-based content authoring...
Tip #1: If the item you are contributing through a browser web page 'form' (edit boxes with a 'Submit' type button) is longer than a few sentences or is something that takes more that a couple minutes to write, PLEASE for your own sanity write the copy 'locally' and use the form, through a cut-and-paste operation, to transfer your contribution to the web server.
Even if your Internet connection is maintained throughout the content contribution, there is always that very real possibility that the server you are 'conversing' with will have forgotten about your 'thread of conversation' and will respond with a 'Who are you and do you want? Let's start over response.' This is an inevitable 'gitcha' based on how servers have to 'timeslice' their attention to you and many other activities and user 'conversations'.
The best strategy is to open you local text editor or word processor and capture your content without the dependency that the server will remember you and what you were two were doing together.
Tip #2: Even though you have the best intentions, you will slip and write something that goes into Web Limboland. If you are lucky and this is a big 'if', as the 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' reminds us, "Don't panic!" Calmly – and this can be difficult in proportion to the size and complexity of the thing you've lost – press you Back Arrow once to (hopefully) take a step back in time to the web form you just submitted. Every now and again, this will result in your bringing back the form you've just filled out with its copy intact. If so, count your lucky stars and consider this a reminder how important it is to write locally, publish globally.
Tip #3: If all else fails and you are sure that you have lost your Next Great American Novel, bite the bullet and get back on the horse right away. Chalk your loss up to experience and before you do anything else, as stupid as this sounds, rewrite your piece (locally of course) and contribute it as you intended.
If you accept your loss and don't make your contribution, the Technology Gremlins will have won. You'll have a negative experience that will eat at you forever and, believe it or not, diminish your incentive to make further contributions at a later time.
When you accept the loss and rewrite, you win and your readers win. Not only do your readers get the chance to read your contribution, the chances are – and this is a too-true fact of a Writer's Life – your rewrite will almost always be shorter, more to the point and better thought out.
-Sohodojo Jim--
P.S. Yes, the above was writen locally and published globally as I have been bitten by this snake more times than I care to remember! :-)