I love Avenir. I fell in love with Avenir about 30 seconds into the free trial tutorial. I was so much in love that I wanted to have Todd Ransom's babies (for the uninitiated, he is the creator of Avenir.) I purchased the program immediately, and it has been worth every single cent of the $30 I paid, since it was one of only TWO external programs (programs that didn't come with my Macbook) that I used every single day.
What is it? I've raved about this before ... Avenir is writing software designed for the fiction writer. It is a word processor, yes, but it is also a database for characters and locations and scenes and a repository for knowledge (relevant or otherwise) and a brilliantly designed way for a writer to keep track of the minutae of their fantasy worlds. It is simple, smooth, pretty, and 99% flawless.
Which is why I was baffled beyond belief when this program that I love and practically worship began to act strangely yesterday morning. Strange as in, not let me create a new file without shutting down. Strange as in, not installing the update without shutting down. Strange strange strange.
Being a former victim of Windows, I wisely decided to shut the computer down and try again later. Later, I remembered that Macs are a gentler breed, and less grumpy, and that I was allowed to ask questions and seek answers and explanations. So at lunchtime I investigated the problem and discovered that Todd - my hero, Todd - had sold his baby. I can only hope it's because Mariner software gave him a job and a big fat paycheck.
Avenir is now StoryMill 3.0, and I was welcome to purchase it. (*blink* but I already purchased it.)
There were some lovely improvements, they promised, it would be well worth the $44.95. (*blink* but I already purchased it. Why can't I just get this update and make Avenir go? It's not hurting anyone. I LIKE the old version. I don't NEED the improvements.) Would you like to Buy Now? (*sigh*) Upon further investigation I found that anyone with a previously registered copy of Avenir and the accompanying serial number could get the special "upgrade price" of $14.95 ... And I had one of those, and the improvements did look intriguing ...
So I bought it.
And reluctantly, after spending last night transforming my scrawled notes on The Last Royal into a StoryMill file, I have to agree that it is a vast improvement. My major issue with Avenir (text written in the Scenes category had to be manually inserted into the Chapter view) has been addressed and resolved. There is a timeline view that gives me a graphical representation of what happens to which character and when that was totally worth the fifteen bucks all by itself. There are some VERY nifty filters that let me sort things by tag or date or status. Plus, it's prettier.
And now, I'm off to go flesh out my characters before I have to wake the kids up and get the boy up and ready for his first day back to class and get my own self ready for work and try to figure out how to make enough jack to hire that Reality Liason I need so badly.