"Most people won't realize that writing is a craft. You have to take your apprenticeship in it like anything else"
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Porter’s line takes aim at the romantic alibi that still clings to writing: the idea that good sentences arrive on a lightning bolt, preloaded with “voice,” and the rest of us are merely unlucky. Calling writing a craft is her quiet act of demystification, and also a power move. Craft is work you can measure, teach, botch, repeat. It’s also work you can demand respect for. In one breath she strips away the glamour and raises the stakes.
“Most people won’t realize” isn’t just a complaint about readers; it’s a diagnosis of the culture that consumes prose while pretending it’s frictionless. Porter is pointing at the invisible labor: drafts, dead ends, editorial bruising, the hours spent learning what not to do. The word “apprenticeship” smuggles in an older, sturdier model of art-making: you don’t get crowned a writer, you get trained into it, under pressure, over time, often by being bad in public. There’s humility in that, but also steel. Apprenticeships are how you earn authority without begging for it.
As a journalist and a literary writer working through the early- to mid-20th century’s churn of modernism, economic upheaval, and professionalized media, Porter understood that talent without discipline becomes decoration. Her intent is corrective, even moral: stop waiting for inspiration to validate you. Take the job seriously enough to be a beginner long enough to become dangerous.
“Most people won’t realize” isn’t just a complaint about readers; it’s a diagnosis of the culture that consumes prose while pretending it’s frictionless. Porter is pointing at the invisible labor: drafts, dead ends, editorial bruising, the hours spent learning what not to do. The word “apprenticeship” smuggles in an older, sturdier model of art-making: you don’t get crowned a writer, you get trained into it, under pressure, over time, often by being bad in public. There’s humility in that, but also steel. Apprenticeships are how you earn authority without begging for it.
As a journalist and a literary writer working through the early- to mid-20th century’s churn of modernism, economic upheaval, and professionalized media, Porter understood that talent without discipline becomes decoration. Her intent is corrective, even moral: stop waiting for inspiration to validate you. Take the job seriously enough to be a beginner long enough to become dangerous.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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