…Nutella biscuits. See? I bet you thought I was going to say “subversion of expectations.” No. I’m not that simple. I could’ve been, but my mum took multivitamins while she was pregnant with me, and I turned out fine (as I have said previously, that’s debatable). I could’ve taken the subversion of expectations one step further and decided to still say “subversion of expectations,” thereby subverting the possible subversion. But, it’s too late now. It’s not like I can go back and change it.

  Back to clichés. As I said, I think pointing out a cliché when you use one has become cliché (specifically saying, “I know it’s cliché, but…”). Now, I am notorious for equivocally living under a rock, and so I might just be jumping the gun, here, but I believe that I am the first person to publicly point this out.

  I have had multiple friends reach out to me when I was having a series of tough times (I’m not taking questions currently, sorry) and say, almost word for word, “I know it’s cliché, but I’m here for you.” Now, I’m first of all going to point out that I think “I’m here for you” isn’t a cliché. Google defines a cliché as “a phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought.” Now, I think that something as simple as “I’m here for you” is so simple that it is very easy to come up with. That’s not to say it hasn’t been come up with before, but it is certainly simple to hear that someone you know is having a hard time and to want to be there for them to support them. So I don’t think it’s really a cliché at all, to be honest.

  Now, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, maybe I’m being pedantic and maybe I’m completely straying from the point of this blog post, which are all things that I do very frequently. But to reiterate the point, I think clichés are just fine. As a writer, my question is how are you supposed to be creative if there isn’t a baseline for normalcy?