The scent of cliché?

The life of a literary hopeful is beset with disappointments and as we exchanged updates on our progress towards recognition of our efforts in some format it would be easy to discourage each other. Okay so: Tony didn't win any of the competitions that he entered; Izzie's radio interview didn't materialise; Annie's brilliant childrens story idea has hit a setback, Rob's latest novel is stalled and Linda has been flooded with 'proper' work which has prevented her submitting her novel, but the camaraderie of being a member of this group means that we avoid this pitfall. We encourage each other, look for the positives and we press on in pursuit of elusive goals. It's what we do.
Linda submitted a story, Peter's Funeral, for critique and, as is usual with her writing there was much to admire, much to praise. We all agreed to being confused about the exact relationship between the narrator and the person in the coffin. We recognised that Linda didn't want to spoon-feed the reader but thought that clearer signposting was necessary. Rob's assertion that 'lilies heavy with the scent of loss' also had the scent of cliché was roundly condemned (see what I did there?) by the others. As far as other suggestions for improvement were concerned a competitive element entered the missing-hyphen (see what I did there too?) spotting and it was Tony who picked out a tautologous adverb, which is usually Rob's job.
The final discussion about the difficulty of writing allusive prose without it turning into elusive prose was difficult to grasp (!) so we arranged the next meeting: 27th January, at Annie's with Tony submitting - we're hoping for something in Anglish.