NOT YOUR USUAL SUSPECTS

A group blog featuring an international array of killer mystery, suspense, and romantic suspense writers. With premises and story lines different from your run-of-the-mill whodunits, we tend to write outside the box. We blog several times a week on all topics relating to romantic suspense and mystery, our writing, and our readers. We welcome all comments and often have guest bloggers. All our authors can be contacted separately, too, using their own social media links.

We find our genre delightfully, dangerously, and deliciously exciting - join us here, if you do too!

NOTE: the blog is currently dormant but please enjoy the posts we're keeping online.


Julie Moffet . Cathy Perkins . Jean Harrington . Daryl Anderson . Nico Rosso . Maureen A Miller . Sandy Parks . Lisa Q Mathews . Sharon Calvin . Lynne Connolly . Janis Patterson . Vanessa Keir . Tonya Kappes . Julie Rowe . Joni M Fisher . Leslie Langtry

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Cliche

Once upon a time in a land far far away....I ran upon a little creature they said was named, Cliche.

He was a hairy little bugger who mumbled and repeated himself.  If confronted, Cliche would raise his mutant fist and warn, "Read my lips." But you really couldn't read them.  They looked like tractor tires in need of air. If you ever tried to correct Cliche, he would point one of his two fingers at you and retort, "Rome wasn't built in a day, you know." And then he would stomp off with feet that looked like flattened sausages.

Cliche was often seen about town, grumbling softly and carrying a big stick. He moved as slow as molasses and had a protruding stomach acquired from an avid habit of dumpster diving.  Antennas twitching over a sea of fast food wraps, he would hold aloft a chicken bone and let loose a demonic laugh.  "Waste not, want not," he'd preach and then execute a perfect swan dive back into the rubbish.

If you tried to warn Cliche that his lifestyle was detrimental to his health he would just snort and wiggle his whiskers.  Turning his scaly back on you, he would slink off into the shadows and proclaim, "don't you know, a Cliche has nine lives?"

Have you seen Cliche?  What have you heard him say?


22 comments:

Wynter said...

Cute - he keeps creeping into my place, that stinker.

Julie Moffett said...

Hahahahaha!! Love this post! Not sure how you came up with this, Maureen, but it's all in a day's work, I guess. Love how you always look on the bright side, and remember, another day, another dollar. :) LOL!!

Maureen A. Miller said...

Wynter, I think I probably have an infestation. :)

Julie, this stems from Angela's workshop. I must have woken up in a cold sweat having nightmares about cliches. hahaha

Toni Anderson said...

Very cute. They certainly roll off the tongue! (snigger)

Anonymous said...

Why this is cuter than a bug in a rug. You are truly the sharpest tool in the shed to come up with something so orginal and clever. I've been infested for years. My editor gets as mad as a hornet at me for all the cliches I use.
LOL
Kelly Abell
www.kellyabellbooks.com

Jenny Schwartz said...

What an adorable cliche :) Great post, Maureen

Julie Moffett said...

I agree with Anonymous! This post is cuter than a bug in a rug!! :)

Maureen A. Miller said...

Toni, would that be the tongue that the cat got? :)

Kelly, your paragraph was infested! He has already attacked you. :)

Thanks, Jenny. I guess he's cute...in a dumpster-diving kind of way. And Julie, you can almost say he's cute as a button.

Feel free to insert an exaggerated roll of the eyes at any time. :)

Marcelle Dubé said...

Very funny, Maureen. At least, it would be if it didn't hit so close to home...

Maureen A. Miller said...

I know what you mean, Marcelle. I was trying to take that little bug down a notch.

Elise Warner said...

Loved your post. First laugh of the morning. That little guy is always around.

Karen Fenech said...

Maureen - lol! Great post!

Josh Lanyon said...

Mystery cliches I could happily live without:

1 - The gay best friend

2 - The quirky coroner

3 - The bottle of booze in the PI's desk

4 - The inherited adolescent with a chip on her/his shoulder

5 - The evil ex

:-D

Maureen A. Miller said...

Elise, nothing like a laugh and a cup of coffee to start out the day! (OMG, I sound like Cliche!)

Karen, thank you!

Josh, those are perfect! Throw in a trench coat and a cigar and you're all set.

Taryn Kincaid said...

Delightful post. Your image of Mr. Cliche is just purty as a picture.

As for me, I love 'em. The more the merrier.

Maureen A. Miller said...

Thanks, Taryn. I visited the Romancing the Past blog today. You guys did a great job.

Unknown said...

Oh, I avoid Cliche like the plague....

The trouble with Cliche is that he sneaks into my study - yeah, like a thief in the night - and types. He must do. I don't litter the page with him and yet my editor always finds him.

Maureen A. Miller said...

Yeah, Cliche's crafty, Shirley. Sometimes all you see are his antennas twitching above your keyboard and next thing you know your sentence starts out, "It was a dark and stormy night...."

Clare London said...

*lol* Lovely post! I think we've all been ambushed by him at some stage or another, without even realising it! :)

Maureen A. Miller said...

So true, Clare. As we speak, Cliche is lounging across my keyboard, striking a swimsuit model pose. It's not a pretty image. :)

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Brenda Carroll (Eaves) said...

The last time I saw Cliche, he was hanging out with Onomatopoeia. When he told her that he had been living under a rock and was having a hard time keeping up with the Jones since he had only been born yesterday, she screeched at him and then plopped down, boo-hooed her heart out and then boinked him on the head which was as hard as a Billy Goats. Cliched bleated "What comes around, goes around!" to wit she replied "I'll squish you til you screech!" But Cliche replied "Well, you live and learn. Let's let bygones be bygones and stay the course until the cows come home." After that brawl, they lived happily ever after.

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