This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Alas! I've reached the middle muddle
in my new novel. I'm in trouble,
so I doodle and I dawdle,
scratch my noodle, weep a puddle,
grab a friend and try to cuddle
but STILL I have to muddle through the middle.
Fiddle!
If I could hurdle past the muddle
in the middle to the battle,
addled foes will sabres rattle
and the hero with his antique atlatl
can spill his quiver then skedaddle,
scoot off, whittle a canoe, and paddle
'til he founders by a shore of nettle
where he'll lose his breeches, wear a kettle
-- Aye! That'll test the hero's mettle.
But after all that I'll still be saddled
with the muddle in the middle.
It's enough to drive me maddle!
Faddle!
I could herd my characters like cattle,
round up heads and let them prattle,
have the traitor tell his tattle over bottles
in a tavern, something subtle.
That'll pad the middle past the muddle.
The fuddy duds' and dullards' deeds'll
need a jaded rogue who'll needle,
while the greedy merchants wheedle
and pretty women preen and preedle.
Yes! That's one idea... a seedle...
But if readers I bewilder and befuddle
with this feckless scuttlebutt, I'll bettle
that the book'll be impossible to peddle.
Feddle!
I could introduce a foolish poodle
who consumes a steaming struedel
but that seems a little crudel.
Or invent an anxious axolotl
whose gross debilitating mottle...
Argh! Someone sieze my throat and throttle!
Fiddle Faddle Feddle Foo!
I am muddled in the middle
and I don't know what to do!