M+ is worth trying, though.
As you know, Bob, I recommend that people write fiction in plain text editors instead of fancy editors that allow them to waste time with formatting. (And that emit truly vile html. Yeah, I'm staring in stupefaction at Word, here.) I also recommend using Markdown formatting for the lightweight formatting you do need for your typical story. Markdown doesn't clutter up your plain text with crud, is readable as-is in email, and is easily converted to clean html. Many text editors have the converter conveniently built in.
At the moment I'm writing with a beta build of Kod. I do not recommend you do the same. For one thing, if you want a fully-featured programmer's editor for OS X, that old stalwart BBEdit is there being just as stable, fast, high-powered, and slightly ugly as always. For another thing, Kod crashes. Constantly. It's a beta and I was warned and I am not actually upset but yow. I am now in the habit of typing a phrase and saving. I command-S as a nervous twitch.
I can't remember the last time BBEdit crashed. It was probably not in this decade.
So why am I using Kod? Because it looks different. Instead of a Monaco-alike at 9pt black text on white background (as I have been staring at for over 15 years now), it uses the lovely M+ font in white on dark gray by default. This somehow jars my brain out of ruts just enough to be useful. The story looks different. Prose reads differently in my head. I'm sure this says something horrible about what a shallow visual thinker I am or something. But it's effective so I'm rolling with the crashes.
As for the story... 9000 words and chugging. I can see a first draft from here if I shade my eyes. Xander wishes to complain that I have soaked his feet, twisted his ankle, scared the crap out of him, covered him in mud, and finally made him drunk-ish. Giles protests that this isn't nearly enough character torture. For Xander. Giles feels his own experience in the story is satisfactory.
At the moment I'm writing with a beta build of Kod. I do not recommend you do the same. For one thing, if you want a fully-featured programmer's editor for OS X, that old stalwart BBEdit is there being just as stable, fast, high-powered, and slightly ugly as always. For another thing, Kod crashes. Constantly. It's a beta and I was warned and I am not actually upset but yow. I am now in the habit of typing a phrase and saving. I command-S as a nervous twitch.
I can't remember the last time BBEdit crashed. It was probably not in this decade.
So why am I using Kod? Because it looks different. Instead of a Monaco-alike at 9pt black text on white background (as I have been staring at for over 15 years now), it uses the lovely M+ font in white on dark gray by default. This somehow jars my brain out of ruts just enough to be useful. The story looks different. Prose reads differently in my head. I'm sure this says something horrible about what a shallow visual thinker I am or something. But it's effective so I'm rolling with the crashes.
As for the story... 9000 words and chugging. I can see a first draft from here if I shade my eyes. Xander wishes to complain that I have soaked his feet, twisted his ankle, scared the crap out of him, covered him in mud, and finally made him drunk-ish. Giles protests that this isn't nearly enough character torture. For Xander. Giles feels his own experience in the story is satisfactory.
Still, I can definitely see it, because I *know* that I waste time with word counting and reformatting and fiddling with the presentation options every twos seconds...
One question though, white text on a black background? Grey on white? Doesn't that hurt your eyes after a while?