Why I don’t finish a novel

I read through a writer’s portfolio titled The Worst
described as “stuff I re-read the next day and realized it’s rubbish”
I loved it.

I found a soul mate.
Someone who vacillates over one small iota of a word
agonizes over a turn of a phrase
squeezes a thought into the smallest written space
spends hours constructing
and then throws the creation away.

Dictionaries pile high in my house –
rhyming, thesaurus, reverse, phonetic, concise, crossword…

I know the etymology of so many words
I need to keep quiet at cocktail parties.
I can diagram a sentence in 15 seconds
and by 30 have suggested alternative adverbs.
This I must keep to myself
and don’t get me started on conjugation.

When I start back on a languishing project
the dialogue inspires me
‘oh, what an interesting expression’
and I’m back into metered prose.

“Hello my name is Catherine and I am a Logophile”
‘oh but, perfect word, precise meaning, precious composition’

So I remain a poet
wishing to be a novelist
      longing to be a novelist
‘if only I could find a word to describe…’