Language was a painting to Mama. Words and phrases, the catchier the better, were the brush strokes of finished sentences.

Other families played Canasta and Monopoly; we played word games like Scrabble and Perquacky. Eventually, Mama invented the Cliché Game, and it was the most fun of all.

She always started it off with a well-worn phrase. On Mondays, it might be, "Well, if the sun is shining and the creek don't rise, we'll go shopping today." She would then look in expectation at one of us.

My brother would stop trying to figure out why Rice Krispies went snap, crackle and pop long enough to respond with, "With any kind of luck, Mama, you might find those new dishes you've been wanting."

Two pairs of eyes would then look in my direction. My turn. I might come up with, "Don't y'all take any wooden nickels."

Daddy's thoughts were always on the family budget. As soon as he heard the word nickels, he would pipe up with, "My pocket is not a bottomless pit." More often, he would quip, "Money doesn't grow on trees."

"Hurry up, now, and clean your plates!" Mama would say as she scraped her chair back from the table. "We have to make hay while the sun shines."

No one ever taught me that using clichés in writing is correct. Just the opposite. But the other day, I read that tried and true clichés, having earned a significant place in the preservation of our culture, are now being seriously considered by some researchers as the backbone of our communication system.

Mama would be thrilled.

As a writer, an architect of prose, I enjoy the privilege of typing a distinctive breath of life into one-dimensional men, women or children. I always hope the characters I create will leave a lasting impression on the reader and that my characters will be forever grateful.

In any event, I write about things and people I can see, hear, touch and especially those things I remember. When I dig deep into my unconscious, I often find characters with delightful dialogue, ones I discovered while growing up with a mother who loved language and where dog-eared expressions were as natural as eating grits for breakfast.

My characters may not always be credible, and they might not always be real. I like to take a little from one and a little from another and make a whole new entity. What (or who) I end up with becomes an amalgam of many people. Then I sit back and watch as they go wild doing whatever their created personalities tell them to do.

Mama’s Cliché Game taught me that creativity is a bottomless pit and that the lowly cliché can be a diamond in the rough or a blessing in disguise. With that in mind, I try to keep up the good work and hope it doesn't drive me stark raving crazy. I'll strive to turn off my computer before I’ve become blind as a bat or worn to a frazzle, and I pray that I will always be able to grab a new idea before it vanishes into thin air, leaving me sadder, but wiser.