A note on derivativeness: you have a responsibility to ensure you’re not ripping off the original idea. This list certainly is not an endorsement for plagiarism or embracing derivativeness as your road to riches and fame. I intend only to educate about the nature of creating fresh ideas. I believe every story has been told (there’s only two or so anyway), with only minor changes to the details.

The idea is to get you thinking about the relationships between story elements and how you can ripple new life into your work by plucking the invisible strings that holds it all together.  How derivative you allow this to be is entirely on you and your comfort level. But, if your intention is to become a professional writer, you need to stop right now and realize that this is not an endorsement for ripping off other people’s hard work. Again, we’re here to talk about how you can look at old ideas in a new way, and how this can lead to crafting your own spin on those same two (or so) stories.

Feel free to let your own reversals be as silly as you want. I can’t present this list without admitting to indulging my sillier side.

Like some of our other lists, this is a mix of ideas and situations. Some are bald, polar-opposites of well-known works. I wouldn’t recommend naming your story or manuscript exactly this, but instead treat the reversal as a seed for creating a new idea.

Be warned: this can be a tool for good, or a tool for evil.

25 Flips on an Old Idea

1. The Mop in the Stone
2. Little Green Riding Hood
3. Mrs. Sandman
4. Father Goose
5. Insomniac Beauty
6. Alice’s Adventures in Ordinary, Everyday Life
7. Robocrook
8. Librarians of Fortune
9. Damsel in Comfort
10. Werehumans
11. The Murdered Butler
12. Casualties of Peace
13. The Little Old Man Who Lived in a Shoe
14. The Leaving of the King
15. The Horrible Wizard of Oz
16. Apollo 31
17. The Godson
18. Juliet and Romeo
19. The Sidekick’s Journey
20. Diamonds are a Boy’s Best Friend
21. The Great Indoors
22. My Unfair Lady
23. Earth Wars
24. Battlefield Neptune
25. Queen Kong

Today’s a shorter list, but we’ve included examples. Enjoy.

25 Signs You’re Reading a Piece of Crap

1. An unexpected moral bursts onto the page. “The villain was defeated. Don’t do drugs.”
2. The story takes forever to get going. “Meanwhile, on page 114, the conflict is introduced.”
3. The writing is unclear. “Happy people like being happy and would do nice things to be happier and share the happy.”
4. The style is overly wordy. “Happy people like being happy and would do nice things to be happier and share the happy with people who aren’t having happy.”
5. There’s an invincible, perfect character with a throwaway flaw. “John was good at what he did, never made mistakes, but he had trouble at love.”
6. Passive voice. “Jimmy WAS going to the store. He WAS going to his best friend’s birthday party later. He WAS thirteen already.”
7. Telling instead of showing. “Alex was angry. He was mad that his sister had forgotten his birthday party and had gone out the night before with her friends instead of helping put up party decorations.”
8. Unnecessary extra characters. “Over in the corner, all alone and bothering no one, the mailman read his copy of Better Homes & Gardens.”
9. Gratuitous punctuation errors. “Donny was, happy. He–loved; going to DisneyLand.. Its the happiest of all place’s on Earth.”
10. Subject-verb disagreements. “The cat or dog are causing a ruckus. Bob and Joan is angry about this.”
11. Purple prose. “The grandiloquent vestiges of the clerical impersonator bore a genuine ecumenical pedigree.”
12. The presence of informed attributes. “Christopher is a good writer.”
13. Tonal disconnect. “The sky was bright and the sun was shining. Birds were chirping. The crisp morning air was sprinkled with the smell of dew. Dave resolved to fight–to die, for glorious honor in war. Wherever the little man was held down under the boot of evil, wherever children cry out for a hero, there would Dave be.”
14. Shifting tense. “I was going to the park for lunch. A car is speeding down the road. I will be hit by the car.”
15. Shifting perspective. “I rested on the park bench and enjoyed my lunch burrito. Back at the office, Dave feels angry about missing his lunch and wants to punch Bill when he gets back from eating his burrito at the park.”
16. Author diatribes. “Alec frothed when he read the Facebook post. ‘Don’t you get it?’ he typed angrily. ‘Any idiot can see that the elected official is a moron, the truth speaks for itself!’”
17. Adverb overkill. “Quietly, sneakily, Jim snuck into the room. Quickly, he sprinted into the shadows as the door closed behind him.”
18. Strawmen. “‘Ah, but you see,’ Elliot started. ‘You’re incorrect about the current political landscape for the following citable and un-counterable reasons.”
19. Cliches. “Spencer resolved to take it to the next level. Come hell or high water, by the end of the day, one would win, one would fall.”
20. Overly-complicated plot. “Once we find the passkey, we’ll be able to get past the outer wall. But, we have to wait until the solstice blinds the optical readers and Bravo Team has bypassed the encryption at the Siberian outpost. If we’re able to then reroute the convoy, we’ll have a small window of opportunity to use crack the safe. Unfortunately, if the passcode is in ancient Sumerian, we may have to recruit my ex-girlfriend from college who I haven’t seen in sixteen years and lives on an oil rig.”
21. It doesn’t end when it should. “I hugged my sister, and together we finally cried. Cried for our dog, who had been there for us, and for whom we could not be there anymore…The next day, I decided to go to the mall and clear my head.”
22. Unresolved mysteries. “I always wondered what the deal was with the cuneiform written on the insides of the bank vault.”
23. Overdone exposition. “We have to find the lost treasure of Abraham Lincoln, who you might remember was our nation’s sixteenth president, and liberator of the slaves from the South. He wore a stovetop pipe hat and was very tall. He was born in a log cabin and learned to read by candlelight…”
24. Crappy, stilted dialogue. “‘Hello ex-wife!’”
25. Unnecessary vulgarity. I’ll leave this one to your imagination.

This is not about those times.

If the hot idea ignites your blood, then the absence of a hot idea can leave your veins shivering. Lots of writers frost over while waiting for that next hot idea to land in their lap. Some never even touch the keyboard or pen until the next idea “arrives”.

You need to dodge the hot/cold mentality altogether and focus on what really makes for a prolific writer. It isn’t waiting for that next idea to come to you–it’s going out and chasing down that next hot idea, clubbing it over the head, and dragging it back to your cave. But how do you chase down and club an idea?

Simple. By writing. Writing, no matter what.

Writing in cold blood is not always easy–hell, it almost never is. It can be tedious, frustrating, and can leave your head feeling numb. Every new word can remind you of that last trip to the dentist. But, just like getting a filling, you may not like it, but it’s worth it in the long run. Why?

Writing is a skill, and like any skill, without practice you lose your edge. Hell, if I don’t write every day then the words and ideas that I have in my head start to stave off and go stale. Your mind is a machine, and without daily maintenance, the parts gather gunk and the whole damn thing risks seizing up during one of those oh-so-rare hot ideas. Zero-to-Sixty writing is a high-risk game, and one you can avoid.

Writing in cold blood is annoying, it’s frustrating, and it tests your commitment. If you’re serious about being a writer, though, it’s one of the more important things you can do. Business types like the label “best practice”, and, for as little as I care about the business world, I have to agree. It is a best practice, because it keeps your juices flowing. A rolling stone gathers no moss, and pumping blood doesn’t go cold. Not only will you be ready when that next hot idea crosses your sights–you’ll probably handle it more quickly and with more depth of skill than you would have if you had just sat around waiting for it to fall into your lap.

Except, like most of us, you open your mouth, and no words come out. Perhaps you manage a small, bleated yip before freezing up completely. Then you just stand there, dumbfounded and uncertain, with all eyes on you.

But what is this? Why is this happening? Here you are  your own private God, no? Why, the words should just spring forth–Let There Be Story–and then the page should just automatically fill up, or perhaps the keyboard should just starting clicking away on its own, or the pen should spring to life, scribbling furiously across entire reams of paper, yes?

If only.

Relax. We all get the jitters from time to time. And isn’t that really what this is? Rather than facing off against an expectant audience, though, we’re facing off against an internal audience–and our fears, doubts, and misgivings all have season tickets in the box seat. They sit up there, munching on their popcorn and their candy, slurping soda while spilling it on the floor, and the whole time they’re yelling “Give it up!” or “You’ll never make it, Fatso!” or whatever deflating insult your mind can cook up for them to shout. Even if you manage to quiet their little voices, you can never quite escape the feeling of their eyes, constantly zipping all over you–judging you, evaluating you, provoking you into feeling that maybe they’re right, maybe this is foolish, maybe I should give up.

Except, there are no eyes, are there? Your fears, doubts, and misgivings–those are just figments of your imagination, aren’t they? So, what’s really happening, and what can you do to stop it?

I’ve used the analogy of a stage performance because I feel it’s an appropriate comparison, and hopefully one that gives some semblance of what’s really going on inside the mind of your friendly neighborhood writer. Both are situations where you have an entertainer trying their damnedest to amuse an audience, to wow them with some brilliant and unexpected bravura performance. And, in both situations, it’s entirely possible that at any point your may spiral into despair and want to curl up into a ball in front of everyone and bawl your eyes out.

It’s stage fright, pure and simple. The blank page is terrifying to most writers. Now, I’m sure there are a few daring souls out there who look upon the their word processor or notepad and feel no fear–perhaps exhilaration, even–but I have not met them (and probably never will).

So what to do? Just start typing whatever comes into your head? Fill the page with endless rhetorical questions? Perhaps give in and actually do curl up into a ball?

I’m not brazen enough to declare there is one end-all correct answer here. There isn’t, or if there is, then it’s known by one guy, and he ain’t sharing. Maybe he’s the son of a bitch who looks at his notepad with boundless enthusiasm. But for the rest of us, down here on Earth, we turn to  little tricks to get the juices flowing–writing prompts, workshops, daily goals, and an endless stream of sugary snacks and gut-rotting soda.

Tiny crutches, I think of them. They ultimately help you, or they don’t. Whatever yours is–and I know you have one–if it works, I say do it, and do it without guilt. Me, personally, I love sour lemon candies. I work with a big bag of them in my drawer. Some days, they’re a reward for hitting the 1000-word mark. Other days, they’re encouragement to keep going until I hit the 20-word mark. No matter what, they’re there to keep me going.

I hope you have something that keeps you going–a personal totem, or sorts. A fount of power or a direct line to your Muse if you’re the poetic source. But something that keeps you going, keeps you writing. Something that keeps you standing on that stage, staring right back at all your fears and doubts, because believe me pal, they’re not going to be the ones to blink first. They never quite go away, either, but don’t let that stop you. In a way, they’ll keep you honest, but only if you have the wisdom to know when and when not to listen to them. It’s an interesting notion–that fear and doubt can be positive forces. It’s one of those ideas that sits right on the edge of your awareness, but we’ll have to save that discussion for another day.

For now, the key lesson to take away from this is that no matter what, you’ve already gone to the trouble of creating your stage, hiring your orchestra, and selling the tickets, so there’s no turning back now. It may start with a yip, but if you can push that to a second one, and then a third, you might just be on your way.

Keep going. Maybe you end up a ball on the floor at the end of the day, but you have to start somewhere, right?

Keep going. You never know where a yip can take you.

Today we will talk about something every writer spends more time (than they’ll likely admit) doing: coming up with excuses.

Some are nagging thoughts, some are phobias. They often tend to clump together during many late-night writing sessions. More than a few are different takes on the same core concerns: time, creativity, and failure. This happens because, if you want to be a writer, you’re probably also the sort of person to obsess about things. Obsessing about failure allows you to gradually coax more and more variations and nuances into your worries, until what started as a molehill of doubt has grown into a mountain of fear. When that happens, it’s like a pre-emptive strike against your own psyche.

I do want to point out that not everything on here is always a problem–it’s only a problem when you’re reaching for it, trying to come up with a scenario to dodge the empty page. Sound familiar? Like maybe when you’re trying to force a situation in your writing? That’s right–excuses are just as contrived and often require the same amount of creativity that you should be pouring into your writing.

On days when I feel like I just can’t write, I push myself to put just why I can’t down on paper. Doing this accomplishes two things. For one, it keeps me writing. Two, it calls me on my own bullshit. Just can’t do it? Why, have you lost your hands? That’s still not even a valid excuse. Except for a few brief periods in my young-adult life when I was physically incapable (by slings and casts) from using a keyboard, I’ve always wrote. Even then I tried–and often failed–with spectacularly painful results.

So cut the crap. If you’re serious about writing, you need to overcome the urge to make excuses. Frankly, there are none. I’m not saying there won’t be perfectly valid reasons from time to time–say, the birth of your child or the passing of a loved one–but what I am saying is that you need to learn to identify the difference between reasons, and excuses.

Here’s today’s list to get you going:

50 Excuses for Not Writing (That Are All Lame)

1. Too tired.
2. Just don’t have the time.
3. Not done “researching”.
4. Wanting to “get it right” the first time.
5. Not enough “vision”.
6. Too busy.
7. “I don’t know where to go next.”
8. Fear of making mistakes.
9. Don’t know where to begin.
10. Don’t know how to keep going.
11. Fear it won’t be good or people won’t like it.
12. No ideas.
13. Writing is too overwhelming.
14. Too old.
15. Too young.
16. “My muse is on vacation.”
17. Writing is hard.
18. Wanting to having everything planned out first.
19. There’s a TV show on you really want to watch.
20. That new movie is out.
21. Lack of confidence.
22. Need to check Facebook for the fiftieth time today.
23. Too many distractions.
24. “I don’t have the right environment to write.”
25. “I’ll get to it tomorrow.”
26. “Nobody will want to read it.”
27. “I’ll never finish this.”
28. Don’t know how it will end.
29. Not feeling well.
30. “I wrote yesterday. I don’t need to write today.”
31. “I don’t have enough experience.”
32. Over thinking things like symbolism and theme.
33. Worrying too much about publishing.
34. Writing is painful.
35. “I have writer’s block.”
36. “I don’t know what it’s about.”
37. “I’m just too down to write today.”
38. “I just have too many other projects going on that I want to focus on.”
39. “It doesn’t sound right.”
40. “I can’t get it right.”
41. “There’s already a lot of work out there like this.”
42. “This is a waste of time.”
43. “I won’t be able to sell this.”
44. The cat (or dog, or kids, or whoever) needs me more.
45. “I have to get ready for work.”
46. “I need to pick up the house.”
47. “I need to check my email.”
48. “I’ll never make it as a writer.”
49. “This will never pay the bills.”
50. “I just can’t.”

Where to start. It bugs us all. Start with a bang? A mysterious uncle passing away and leaving a fortune? Perhaps a villain suddenly appears before your protagonist, all pissed off and dripping hate and bad humor? Sure, why not? Sounds good! Let’s do it, right?

No.

Beginnings like this are contrived. Before we go further, let’s take a moment to review what exactly contrived means.

(From Google)

Contrived beginnings occur when you give your story an artificial starting point, rather than letting the story start itself naturally. Every story has a beat, a tempo, and you don’t want to commit the sin of rushing the tempo for the sake of “getting into the action”.

I’m not saying these elements can’t be in your story–hell, if they’re vital they need to be in there. The trick then is to find where they go in relation to the start of your story. Maybe they need to be in the middle, but I suspect not. I find that one of the principles of animation–the squash and stretch–applies when talking about writing beginnings.

The principle is simple: before something moves (such as the characters or events at the beginning of your story) it must first constrict.

In fiction this equates to starting slow, letting the characters settle into their roles, and then getting everyone (reader included) to take a big, deep breath (the squash) before springing into the story (the stretch).

Your characters, before they are propelled into the story, must first demonstrate volume. We see them resist, tighten up, and we learn how they handle themselves– all before they take that leap you’re so eager to start writing. And who’s to blame you? We all want to write the mysterious character, the happy accident, or any one of  the sudden surprises we all wish were more common in our daily lives.

The thing to remember is that your characters don’t start when the story does. They have lives–they’re living them everyday–and your story picks up during the course of one of those days. You don’t want to be creating your characters at the beginning of the story. You want to create the feeling that they’re living, breathing people, and you’re stepping into a day in their life.

By doing this, your reader buys into the inciting accident. The readers will believe in these people, and (most importantly) their actions will carry weight.

Note the overuse of “mysterious” and “unexpected” elements. We all want to foster interest in our readers, but this is not accomplished by dangling an unexpected mystery like a cat toy.

1. A mysterious letter arrives in the mail.
2. The death of a loved one.
3. The arrival of a long lost relative.
4. A special birthday.
5. A stranger comes to visit.
6. The car breaks down.
7. An unjust firing.
8. A really tough homework assignment.
9. A visit to a special place.
10. A loud noise.
11. A suspicious fire.
12. An impending natural disaster.
13. An ancient prophecy.
14. A shadowy meeting of characters.
15. An explosion.
16. A speeding car flying down the road.
17. An unexpected meeting.
18. Two or more characters meeting at a bar.
19. An alarming report.
20. A crisis of faith.
21. A traffic accident.
22. A robbery.
23. An old adversary arrives in town.
24. An old flame arrives in town.
25. The police kicking in the door.
26. Tryouts
27. The unscrupulous land developer rolls into town.
28. The pushy salesman who won’t go away.
29. A jailbreak.
30. Depressing medical news.
31. Someone assumed dead walks in the front door.
32. Family dinner
33. An unexpected plague
34. A mysterious threat appears in town.
35. A gruesome murder.
36. A gun pointed at a face.
37. Young lovers in a car.
38. A startling discovery.
39. A disappearance.
40. Packing up the last moving box.
41. Unpacking the last moving box.
42. A cryptic message.
43. First day on the job.
44. A high school graduation.
45. A bomb going off.
46. A break-in at a museum.
47. A false prophet rises to notoriety.
48. An investigator comes to town.
49. Going off to college.
50. The high school reunion.

Today’s list contains fifty images designed to invoke something within your mind’s eye. If they do, then I win. If they don’t, then I lose. And if, for a moment, that image takes you to another place–clicks your mind’s eye over to another view, so to speak–then I win big time.

Note how in almost each example the image is active. Each image is doing something. Except for taste imagery, which tends to be more passive, but I feel this is because when tasting, the subject is almost always the taster, not the taste.

Some are bonus images, in that they appeal to more than one sense. Most are written in the present tense and use that omnipresent you to help sell the image.

1. A red apple sitting on a wooden table
2. A trumpet hitting a high note
3. A dog rubbing against your leg
4. Garbage rotting on a curb
5. Sweet, cold cherry pie
6. Sunlight glaring off a car window
7. Asphalt burning under your bare feet
8. Sour lemonade puckering your lips
9. An icepack chilling the skin around your ankle
10. A car squealing its tires
11. Thunder rattling a building
12. The coarse fabric of a cheap pillowcase scratching your face
13. A crowd of teenagers egging on a fight
14. Cigarette smoke floating in the air
15. The momentary feeling of weightlessness when you’ve just been hit by another vehicle on the road
16. Very hot food burning your throat
17. The civil defense siren blaring
18. Loud bass thumping the windows
19. A sink dripping
20. Sawdust laying on the floor
21. Quiet music playing
22. Shadows crawling across the room at sunset
23. Snow piled up along the curb
24. A cat sleeping under a rocking chair
25. A carved skull reflecting moonlight
26. An old book gathering dust on a table
27. Condensation gathering on the outside of a glass of tea
28. A shaving razor slipping against your skin
29. A dog barking after midnight
30. Flowers blooming after a rainstorm
31. A bee sting prickling up your arm
32. Static erupting out of your radio
33. Sweat sticking to your skin
34. The sun’s rays beating down on you
35. A piece of paper slicing your finger
36. Bleach stinging your eyes
37. The mild whiff of antiseptic hanging in the air
38. A crowded market bustling with people
39. The needle from an immunization or IV pinching your skin
40. Graffiti covering a wall
41. A loose hair tickling your forehead
42. A dark sedan following you across town
43. Mud splashing up
44. A thumbtack poking your foot
45. Donut crumbs sticking to your fingers
46. Your stomach aching after eating something undercooked
47. Bad breath hitting you in the face
48. A kitten nuzzling your hand
49. An air conditioner humming
50. Red ink staining your fingers

Contrast doesn’t have to run on polar opposites. Direct opposition is the realm of tired cliché. Take the classic example of a clean freak and a slob–done to death. Can we think of something that’s off at a right angle that goes in a new direction and draws a new, interesting comparison? Instead of a slob, why not a survivalist? A voodoo priest, or better yet, a priestess?

The list below is sporadic, and at times bizarre. That is on purpose. Some are situations, some are just vague concepts, and some are character driven. The key component behind every example is using differences to compel the narrative.

1. A minister paired with a cat burglar
2. A blizzard during a funeral
3. Circus music during a final exam
4. Kittens and militias
5. A craft store in a skyscraper
6. Environmental activism and exorcisms
7. Vegetable gardens and store mannequins
8. A middle-aged NASA engineer and a homeless person
9. Graveyards and cotton candy
10. Jazz music playing in the desert
11. Catfish and Socialism
12. Riverboats and Fairy Tales
13. Banks and the SAT
14. Skydiving and church
15. Motivational posters in a mortuary
16. Depression and roller coasters
17. Railroads and Tropical Islands
18. Kleptomania and the National Forest Service
19. Pie charts and Pulp Serials
20. A steamer trunk in Ancient Greece
21. A Boxer who loves Hello Kitty
22. Horoscopes for Dogs
23. Finding Three Wishes along with a Mysterious Sealed Envelope
24. The Apocalypse and your High School Prom
25. A war vet and a stolen painting
26. Werewolves and Candygrams
27. Hypochondria and Time Travel
28. The Deep South and Sea World
29. Bears versus the US Army Corps of Engineers
30. Cowboys and Quakers
31. A stage magician who becomes a detective
32. Crop dusters and the homeless problem
33. High blood pressure and Dreaming
34. Tombstones and Puppets
35. Heaven and razors
36. Teenagers and Cholera
37. Circus Clowns and the Internet
38. Double Vision and Lawyers
39. Mirrors and Weather Forecasting
40. Cats and Wolves
41. Thunder and Accordions
42. Children’s Birthday Parties and Alcoholism
43. Ants and Nudity
44. Birds and childbirth
45. Bald people and angry spirits
46. Beards and Felonies
47. The Russians and The Moon
48. Whale poaching and the Girl Scouts
49. Kindness and Insanity
50. Snowmen and pants

The Muse is a fickle lady, and she doesn’t just grant her gifts on anybody and everybody who sits down and declares “And now I write.” In fact, I imagine if the Muse is even in the room at all when such declarations are made, that she stifles a chuckle and goes back to reading her magazine.

Writing is not easy, and we as writers make it hard on ourselves. We have bad habits, bad expectations, and bad outlooks. Some of them are internally created, others are external, but they are forces at play on us when we sit down to write.

The Muse never smiled down on anybody who didn’t first sit down and put their nose to the grindstone, churning out page after page of work until–maybe, just maybe–they had produced enough to convince the Muse that we’re serious here damnit, put down that magazine, and work with us.

Until you have created a suitable offering, be prepared to face any number of stumbling blocks. They come in all shapes, all sizes, and they can sneak up on you. They can be important in their own right (most are), but in the context of writing they are hindrances. They often find their way in under the crack of your study door, and it’s important catch them early, and not ignore them, but put them back where they belong–outside your study, where you will get to them once the Muse has finished her reading.

“And now I write.”

1. Over-thinking
2. Under-thinking
3. Television
4. Phone calls
5. Unexpected Visitors
6. Research
7. “Research”
8. Illness
9. Video Games
10. Pets
11. Internet Connections
12. Loud motorcycles
13. Yard work
14. Bills
15. Weather
16. The Day Job
17. Chores
18. Music
19. Public places
20. Self doubt
21. Fear
22. Forgetfulness
23. Over-planning
24. Boredom
25. Success
26. Failure
27. Relationships
28. Death
29. School
30. Expectation
31. Entitlement
32. Ignorance
33. Overly critical nature
34. Biting off too much at once
35. Perfectionism
36. Pretention
37. Anger
38. Allergies
39. Not turning inward
40. Lack of Enthusiasm
41. Disappointment
42. Holidays
43. Neighbors
44. Resentment
45. Setbacks
46. Misconceptions
47. Exhaustion
48. Uncomfortable chair
49. Ignorance
50. Hunger

Ok. I’ll stop. I don’t want you to go postal.

If verbs are the pulse of your writing, then clichés are the dead weight. They add nothing, and unless your intent is to intentionally add nothing (say through the dialogue of a supercilious character) these need to be avoided. Like the plague.

There are more than one type of cliché floating around out there–overused ideas, like the shootout at high noon, or the prescient, faithful dog who always barks at bad guys. Those we will leave for another day. Instead we’ll focus on the once unique thoughts, phrases, and idioms that have hung around long past their final expiration date.

Without further ado:

50 Overcooked Clichés

1. What’s he been smoking?
2. Smart as a whip
3. Survival of the fittest
4. Nose to the grindstone
5. Bend over backwards
6. Easy as pie
7. Crying over spilled milk
8. The bottom line
9. Heard it through the grapevine
10. Take it to the next level
11. Avoid like the plague
12. Writing on the wall
13. Raining cats and dogs
14. Hot as hell
15. When it rains, it pours
16. Clean Sweep
17. Taking candy from a baby
18. Not rocket science
19. Nick of time
20. Better late than never
21. Makes my blood boil
22. Fit to be tied
23. Selling like hotcakes
24. Cook his goose
25. Get his goat
26. Go postal
27. Driving me crazy
28. Piece of cake
29. Like shooting fish in a barrel
30. Keep it simple stupid
31. Say your prayers
32. Stick a fork in him
33. Out of the frying pan
34. Do or die
35. Take the money and run
36. Like father, like son
37. Hoping against hope
38. Light at the end of the tunnel
39. Shoot for the moon
40. Head over heels
41. Let the cat out of the bag
42. Too many cooks in the kitchen
43. Cool as a cucumber
44. Black as night
45. Crystal clear
46. The crack of dawn
47. The depths of despair
48. To the bitter end
49. Another day, another dollar
50. Give it a rest!