Use it or lose it.

Truism? Maybe, but I have a tendency to avoid paying attention to anything that remotely smells of a cliche. More's the pity. There's a reason some things become cliche. They're so true that once you hear it, you know it as undeniable fact. So you say it. Over and over and she told two friends and she told two friends and so on and so on and so on . . .

Use it or lose it. How many times have we heard that little chestnut?

I'm hear to tell you, ignore cliches at your own peril. There's a reason they got to be cliches.

Oh, also, the same goes for old wives' tales. There's a reason they're OLD wives, after all.

I'm learning the hard way that since I haven't used my writing muscles in so many years that they've atrophied a bit. But, like anything else, excersize is the cure.

So if you have a talent, if there is something you love doing no matter how much grief or worry or despair or life gets in your way, please, please, use it.

Or else.

Joseph Haines, signing off from The Edge of The Abyss.