Well, I missed…..

…putting up a new post yesterday. Obvious to the most casual observer, right?

I had every intention of putting something new up, but as the old cliche goes, the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. We had a power outage that started about eight in the morning and lasted until almost noon.

Then I only had three hours to prepare for a talk on editing I did for the East Texas Writers’ Guild. Of course I had waited until Monday to do that. But I’d had a plan, and a good one, I thought when I came up with it on Sunday. I did a lot of the work I normally do on Monday mornings late Sunday and had it all ready to put up on various Web sites. That left time on Monday morning to do the blog, get a few pages written on my book, and then prepare for the workshop.

A grand plan that went to hell in a hand-basket. (Another cliche, by the way.)

I love saying, “The best plans of mice and men often go astray.”  I use that cliche often. I mean, it fits, right?

But we writers are cautioned about using cliches in our stories, even though they abound in real life. If you really listen closely, we use them all the time. I decided to go on the Internet and look for some more and I found ClicheSite.com that has more cliches than you can shake a stick at.(Cliche alert.)

Here are just a few:

Many hands make light work.
Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. 
Any friend of yours is a friend of mine.
Another day another dollar.
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
Laugh all the way to the bank. 

What are some cliches you say frequently? Do you let your characters use a cliche now and then?