For years I just used TextEdit. It’s free, simple, and takes a second to load on even the slowest computer. I own Word, but Word takes like five minutes to load on my three-year old computer, and is sans Clippy these days, which was one of my only reasons for opening Word. I’ve tried various ‘serious MFA literature’ text editors, stuff like Ulysses and WriteRoom, but beyond their really great full screen modes, they didn’t really give me positive emotions.

I started using Pages this year, and I have been pretty happy. It has full screen mode, and I got turned-on to the typeface BiauKai, which doesn’t have bold or italic versions, but I use on everything I write anyway because I don’t like bolds or italics. Also, I’m hoping to make a sweet family newsletter sometime in the near future, and Pages looks like a real winner for that kind of thing. *fingers crossed*