Chad Pelley: What is your favourite part of the writing process? Your least favourite?
Mark Callanan: I’ve always appreciated that Dorothy Parker quote: “I hate writing; I love having written.” Let that be my mantra. I find writing extremely difficult to do; I’m too concerned with doing it well to actually enjoy myself. That being said, there’s a moment that comes, countless drafts in, when the elements that constitute a poem start snapping into place, when all its little gadgetry suddenly works and those disparate pieces unite to a single purpose, when the trajectory of the poem seems inevitable — that’s the good bit: when the poem works, when it becomes more than the sum of its parts. Otherwise, it would seem like a lot of pointless toil and frustration.
- Mark Callanan, in interview over at Salty Ink. You can read the whole thing here.
