There is a truism that answers the age old question "What is the best all around knife to have." The answer is "the one you have with you." The thing is, it doesn't matter what knife you have, fancy or plain, expensive or not, if, when you really need it you aren't carrying it for whatever reason.
The one I rely on most is one like the one pictured above. An inexpensive Kamp King knife made by Imperial.
Please note, the one above is not my knife. I took the easy way out and filched a photo from online. It's a good pic, but somebody did a really bad job of sharpening that blade!
I'm not sure of the genealogy involved, but Imperial also made several types of Boy Scout and Cub Scout knives. This model is almost an exact copy of the official Cub Scout knife I once owned. The official Scout knives were a bit pricey for a poor country boy to own, but I did have a few. For some reason they were also easily lost. They were very good knives. Imperial sold the Kamp Kraft for a fairly low price at numerous outlets. I seem to remember this exact knife being offered at Walmart in a blister pack for around three dollars back in the '70s and beyond.
What I've found is that the cheaper knife compares favorably with the more expensive ones for everyday carry. And, at the cheap price, I didn't mind losing one so much, therefore, of course, I stopped losing them! There seems to be an inverse square law about these things. Those things you can least afford to lose you are more likely to, and vice versa. Nowadays, though, they have fallen into the range of "vintage" and go for a bit more when you find them. Not exactly rare, you can expect to pay five dollars and up for one on eBay.
The steel is good. It holds an edge well. For a handy person like myself, the few extra tools included are very welcome. The scales tend to break with age, and the joints get wobbly over time with mis-use. Used responsibly though, you can get a lot of mileage out of one. One of these resides in my work pants all the time. I tend to carry a smaller, sleeker more modern version of this in my "town" pants.
You must remember, I said above, "country boy". I suspect it's much the same now, but a country boy of my generation especially just did not ever go anywhere without some sort of pocket knife in his possession. It was a tool in constant use all day every day for uncountable chores. Therefore, whatever I'm doing I always have at least one pocket knife on me.
I'm retired now, but I usually wear some form of work attire. Bib overalls, jeans, coveralls or cargo pants, since I am often repairing things, doing woodwork, gardening or whatever. At this moment I'm sitting here in my bib overalls, my Kamp King knife in my pocket and a larger lock-back knife clipped into the long tool pocket on my leg.
I had a career once and worked in an office. Of course I had a small pocket knife, of the "penknife" variety in my pocket. A city bred co-worker who had been raised in Florida remarked seriously that I must be some sort of hoodlum, since I carried a pocket knife. I and others were quick to counter with the facts of life, Texas style.
Even in grade school, it was a sure bet that every male student, and some of the female ones, carried a pocket knife. It wasn't viewed as a weapon at all. As usual I saw many fights during my school days, but I don't remember anyone ever pulling out his knife. That was a serious breach of etiquette!
I like knives, I even collect them. My collection consists of pocket knives, lock-back knives, sheath knives, and even a couple of swords. I only collect inexpensive ones, though. I never paid more than twenty dollars for one, most fall in the "under five dollar" range. The few more expensive ones were gifts or inherited. I like the variety, and ingenuity of design. I even have at least three of the above mentioned Kamp King knives.
I have no official Scout pocket knives, though. Alas. I do also have an authentic Swiss Army Knife by Victorinox, and a couple of copies of same. I don't carry them. The copies aren't that good, and as for the actual Swiss? See the passage about always losing expensive knives above! I don't risk it. I can MacGyver just as well with my Kamp King.
If you ever wind up in a survival situation you can make almost everything you need to live with the aid of a good knife. If you don't have one, perish the thought, one of your first chores is to make a blade of some sort.
Don't leave home without it!
A while back I wrote here about my writing tools, including some software I use. I just found another free software program that seems promising. I haven't tried it yet, since I don't want to divert myself too much from ongoing projects. Perhaps I will start a new one on it soon and give it a try. However, if you want to check it out for yourself, it is called Storybook. As I said, it is free, open source, software, but it has a lot of great points to recommend it. Here's a quote from the site: "Storybook is a free (open source) novel-writing tool for creative writers, novelists and authors which will help you to keep an overview of multiple plot-lines while writing books, novels or other written works." Your computer needs to have a recent version of Java on it as well, but you can get it from the same site as well if you don't have it. If you try it out before I do, let me know how it works.
My current tools are still working pretty well. My mystery novel, code named "Bluebottle", is going pretty good, I had a slight breakthrough on the plotting today. I've done a little recently on my dotty vampire play as well.
Speaking of vampires. My friend Silas just gave me an early birthday present. He brought in a deck of tarot cards called "The Vampire Tarot", by Robert M. Place. The deck draws heavily from the basic Bram Stoker "Dracula" novel, but there is a touch of other things in there as well. Nosferatu makes an appearance, as does Edgar Allen Poe. It's really pretty nice. I'll keep it handy as I work on the play. (Working title: "Quiche of the Vampire".)
In my previous post I talked about using the Tarot to outline your project. There is no doubt that having a good outline is the preferred way to tackle any writing project. It's very comforting to know which way the story is going so you can take it there. I read recently that writing without an outline is like jumping in the car and starting on a journey without knowing where you are going. That would be anathema to many people. On the other hand, for some, it would be the epitome of adventure.
I read a book by Stephen King on writing a while back. I like what he said. I have to admit it's been awhile and I don't have it in front of me, so I may be sadly misquoting, if so, forgive me Mr. King! What he said was along the lines of "anything anybody tells you about writing is wrong, including me!" His point, I believe, is that you can read tons of books on writing, and I have, some of them agree on some points, disagree on others. You can become greatly confused unless you realize that what each writer is suggesting is what works for that one writer. By all means, read, get ideas, find methods to try. Don't be too upset if they don't all work for you. You will find tools that work with your project, and your own style of working. Writers are, if anything, different individuals. All of us have different viewpoints, different skills and different interests. Pick what works for you, toss the rest and don't feel too bad about it.
Another point, at least for me, is project specific. In my own experience no two projects have evolved the same way. One story grows from a character who appeals to me, another from a scene that appears full blown, still another appears with the ending already known. Each has its own problems, and requires different amounts and kinds of work to finish. You do what you have to do. Now and then a scene appears from nowhere, I write it down, another scene pops up later and it goes with that one. Not a very organized way to work, but it happens. Notebooks, file cards and/or the computer work well to contain those elements. Easy to enter them, file them (especially using the TiddlyWikiWrite tool I talked about in a previous post), and re-assemble them when the time is write. It's especially good when you are working on project A, and while you're in that creative frame of mind, scenes from a new project B pop up. You get them down, file them away, play with them later. By all means, get them down. I've forgotten whole encyclopedias of story ideas, thinking I'd surely remember them later!
A lot of writers, and some of them successful, do indeed start a story and just see where it takes them. They establish their characters and see where they go. No doubt, they waste some time doing that, although even scenes unused can be reused somewhere else, besides it all counts as good practice.
Be an organized writer, but organize it your way. Have fun, that's what it's all about. Certainly be willing to learn new ways, but don't agonize over it or try and force your round peg self into a square hole. Do what works.
Enjoy the journey, with or without a map!
In an earlier post I talked about various writing tools I find useful. I received a comment from a reader on one of his. Here is the comment, hope he doesn't mind me quoting.:
"I wanted to put in a pointer for some free software I found. It's called Celtx and was designed for the film industry, but has had a lot of adaptation to various other theatrical projects. It runs across platforms (Mac, Windows, Linux, etc.). You can find it at http://celtx.com/ "
I downloaded Celtx and I've been using it. The other tools I mentioned work fine for general writing tasks and writing novels, short stories, etc. All can be used for dramatic works, but they don't have specific formatting tools, etc. that accommodate script work. There are several pricey packages out there that do good jobs with scripts. I have also seen a few templates for Word that approach the problem. The Celtx program does most of it for free. I went ahead and bought a Writers add-on for the program, it cost a whopping $9.95 and added a few nice bells and whistles to the basic program.
I like Celtx. It makes it very easy to format various types of scripts for production. For a fee, you can join their online "Studio", which adds the benefits of saving your scripts online with them, offers a base for collaboration, and other possibilities I didn't care to use. The only thing about the program that bothers me is that it is set up to automatically "ping" their site each time you use it. They say no information is transferred, other than just letting them know how many people are using the program. My problem is, I work offline a lot. I have dial-up, I'm not online always (no matter what my partner says!). It's a bit annoying to see the small window popping up that it is trying to make connection to add to their count and it tries repeatedly. Really a small gripe, considering the program is free, and it does a lot of things really well. It is certainly worth trying out if you do plays or screenplays. The program has a lot of utility for overall production, as well. Check it out at the link above!
