Spare Tires, Paused Thoughts

A couple of months ago, our car ran over a nail. The tire didn’t deflate (we have no idea how long that nail had been there, quietly doing its damage) and we were able to keep driving… but anyone who knows tires knows that eventually it would slowly go flat and need fixing.

It wasn't repairable, so we had to look at buying a new tire. Then we discovered that it was impossible to get a tire that would work with the other three; that specific tire was no longer being manufactured. The problem wasn’t whether they’d match, but that the tire inflation sensor light would keep alerting us that something was unbalanced. If that wasn’t frustrating enough, the remaining three tires were in really good condition.

In the end, we had to get a whole new set — but kept one of the good/old ones (without nail damage) to have at home in case it’s ever useful in the future.

The whole experience got me thinking about backups.

As I mentioned in my last newsletter, I had strong momentum from the fellowship to keep working on my proposal. Typically, I don’t try to accomplish very much during the summer but this felt different. I reached a milestone moment earlier this week, however, and when that happens — like a nail in a tire — there’s good cause to take a pause and regroup. It didn’t feel like hitting a wall, just that a break was necessary.

To do this, I prepared some notes for myself so that I can pick it all back up again in the near future. This is my writing-thinking backup. In my notes, I included the following:

• what I actually accomplished recently that reached a milestone (yay! celebrate!)
• where to find the writing I’ll need to start again (text bits live in a variety of places)
• two steps to get started up again when I return (or else I won’t know where to begin…)

This kind of documentation is what Joli Jensen writes about in her book Write No Matter What, and Kateyn Knox also covers this on her website. When you stop working on a project — when you hit that wall, when you’re stalling out, when you need to switch gears or regroup or whatever — the document you make for Future You becomes a backup for that particular moment. My goal is to pause for a week, maybe two, we’ll see. At some point, my motivation usually returns on its own and I’ll be ready to dive back in.

Whether it’s keeping an extra tire in the garage or documenting where your thinking stands before stepping away from a project, these backups aren’t necessarily about the worst-case scenario.

What kinds of backups do you use?