Hi everyone,

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.   Being with family is wonderful most of the time and hope none were stressed out.

Last Cliches: (I always include cliches in my writing and you find them.  Next writing I explain which ones I used and what they mean)

Run Like Clockwork–operate with extreme regularity.  Dates from Late 17th cent.  Hugh Walpole (Reminiscences, 1789): “The king’s last year passed as regularly as clockwork.”

Get One’s Feet Wet–venture into new territory.  Compared to timid swimmer wary of getting into the water at all.  This expression dates only from early 20th cent., similar idea expressed more than 400 years earlier by John Lyly in Euphues and his England (1580): “I resemble those than hauing once wet their feete, care not hoe deepe they wade”.  OR once you get up the nerve to try something new, more willling to plunge in all the way.

Let’s Face It–accept reality; see things as they are.  The title of a 1941 Cole Porter musical–term took hold for next 2 decades and became a cliche.

Why is writing like playing sports?  I watched football this week and realized that writing and sports are similar.  Both writers and sports persons have to be on the ball.  There’s a goal at the end for both.  A writer wants to publish her work; in football, make a touchdown; baseball, get across home plate; basketball, make a basket, and win the game.  To achieve these goals, both have to work their tails off.  Practice makes the writer or the athlete better at his/her craft.

And at the end, you can’t win ’em all.  One football game I watched, they were down to one second and all they needed to do was kick a field goal to win the game.  The kicker missed!  They went into overtime, the kicker had another chance to kick a field goal and missed again.  The other team won by a field goal.  But both teams played a great game.  A writer can hone her craft, write the piece, send it in, and still be rejected.

However, the writer writes another story, and the athlete plays another game. Because they love what they are doing.

Keep Writing,

Yours truly,

Julie A. Winrich
Helping Readers Enjoy Sleuthing and Solve Puzzles