The Ongoing Saga of Why I haven’t Finished My Novel

Reason number four hundred and three.
No, don’t go. It’s a good one. You’ll like it.
Well, maybe ‘like’ is the wrong word. Perhaps
‘appreciate’, or even ‘recognise’.

I woke up
with the final paragraph in my head,
all ready to write in, spelling, punctuation,
everything needed to complete my opus.

I was so excited, I fumbled for my
lucky pen – the one I was using when
I won a story competition at primary school,
though I’ve had no luck since –
and knocked over my glass of water.

Obviously, I needed to dry the pen before use,
but as I entered the bathroom, in search of
a towel, the cat dashed beneath my feet,
and I tripped, dropping my poor pen
into the bowels of the unit which remained
unflushed after some midnight micturitions.

By the time I had failed to retrieve the pen
hygienically, and then called a plumber
to go beyond the u-bend, the paragraph
was gone. All that was left was this.

Nikki Fine is struggling to finish a novel and has resorted to poetry in the meantime. Some of her work has been published, in such places as Spilling Cocoa and The Interpreter’s House. She has also been experimenting with selfies in windy locations.