"Where most authors sweat to produce 1,000 words a day without self-mutilation, McCall Smith has been known to bang out three times that in a single sitting. He's a living rebuke of the notion that novel-writing is the least bit arduous."

I think there's something pernicious about that, as it seems to suggest that there's something easier about doing a bit every day than getting chunks of 5,000 words every week or two, for example, which does not strike me as any less arduous a way of going about things, and one more compatible with having a day-job which surely only adds to the overall level of arduousness.