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Comment by bartread | Hacker News Reader

Agreed. I could run a marathon if I put in the effort. The reason I "can't" is truthfully that I can't be arsed. If you want to run a marathon what you're saying is that you're happy for training for that marathon to take over your life for, probably, about a year, and I'm not motivated to do that.

With that being said Eddie Izzard, with little training, ran 43 marathons in 51 days. He didn't break any records or win any medals, which I suppose is roughly analogous to getting a book published, but he did do it, over and over again, which is arguably writing the damn book.

All of this suggests that I could probably run a marathon right now if I really felt like it. Fortunately (I'll say it again) I can't be arsed. Same goes for writing the book, because nothing inspires me enough to write an entire book. But I could do it, because I've absolutely written a book's worth of words over the past few years.

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> training for that marathon to take over your life for, probably, about a year

Nowhere near that long. There's actually a great book ("The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer") which takes you, quite conservatively, from "I can run a few miles" to your first marathon day in 16 weeks.

With runs on only 4 days a week -- only one of them a long run -- it hardly "takes over your life", either.

I've never run a full marathon, but I have run a half.

My training consisted of maybe a dozen 2 mile runs, and a couple of 6 mile runs, in the space of about a month.

I didn't do any exercise other than that. I wouldn't say I'm naturally athletic either. Sure, I was pretty slow at 2:30, but I managed to run the whole thing without resting or walking.

I reckon that I could smash out a marathon with less than 6 months of training, running 3 days a week. It certainly wouldn't take over my life, and it wouldn't take a year of training.

A similar endurance event I did once was riding a century (100 miles). Sure, riding a bike is a bit easier than running, but my total training for that was about 6 months, riding 25 miles 4 times a week, plus a single 60 mile ride. I managed to complete the ride in about 5:30.

Humans are well adapted to long distance endurance activities. A person of average fitness can walk 12 hours a day for a week with a 15-20 kg pack.

If you need to be "arsed" to write a book and you can't be "arsed" to write a book, then, logically, you can't write a book.

"Can't be arsed" is just an expression, mate. I'm sure you can understand the point they were making.

He cant be arsed.

I think l9k might have been making a more subtle point: maybe motivation/willpower isn't quite so different from the other required personal attributes (in this case, physical fitness) as we tend to think. Perhaps because it can't simply be switched on and off like a tap, but requires training analogous to physical exercise; or perhaps for deeper reasons. (Going down this road pretty quickly leads us into a thicket of ambiguities and philosophical puzzles around 'free will', so it might not be very productive, but it's still worth bearing in mind occasionally.)

Thing is, when looked at in the context of a whole lifetime, motivations change, and often radically. I have friends who couldn't have imagined themselves running a half marathon or a marathon who eventually went on to do so. 10 years ago I couldn't have imagined myself doing an obstacle race, but then I started working out[1] and, hey presto, the impossible became possible. I still don't want to run a marathon, even though I know I could, because of the compromises it would force on me in terms of strength training, depending on what kind of time I'd like to finish in.

[1] I couldn't have imagined working out either but at 36 years old I found myself getting tired out walking upstairs, and having a torrid time with any kind of reasonably intense physical activity, and realised I needed to do something about it to avoid serious health problems later in life - and possibly not that much later.

I think you are confused. "Not being arsed" to do something is the same whether it is running a marathon or a writing a book.

I could run a marathon if I put in the effort. The reason I "can't" is truthfully that I can't be arsed

Well, so could any human being. I've run a bunch of Marathons, and I've personally seen people with no legs complete them. The only significant difference between those who have completed a Marathon and those who haven't is who could be arsed to do it. But I don't think that extrapolates to any human endeavour. Highly motivated people can work their entire lives and something, and still fail.

But I could do it, because I've absolutely written a book's worth of words over the past few years.

It depends on the genre and if it's fiction or non-fiction. Non fiction, yes. But fiction is harder because of stylistic attributes and the fact it all has to connect. It's not like writing 300 300-word blog posts.

>Non fiction, yes. But fiction is harder because of stylistic attributes and the fact it all has to connect.

Ever read Dan Brown?

Renowned author Dan Brown

That isn't a counterargument. Regardless of whether or not you think someone's writing is good, to your taste, or nuanced, there's still considerable (and, I think, reasonably rare) skill involved in making something that the general public wants to pluck off of the paperback shelves (or e-reader equivalent). It might be tawdry, silly, and factually inaccurate, but those qualities are orthogonal to whether or not you can write a story that people want to buy.

>there's still considerable (and, I think, reasonably rare) skill involved in making something that the general public wants to pluck off of the paperback shelves

Is there? The general public can be sold any kind of crap that takes minimal effort -- and in the same way, don't buy masterpieces that take tremendous effort and skill to create.

>It might be tawdry, silly, and factually inaccurate, but those qualities are orthogonal to whether or not you can write a story that people want to buy.

This isn't an argument on actual writing skill though.

It's like you measure a new category like "skill of writing best-selling stuff" that's not necessarily connected to the skill of writing itself -- just to the degree of sales.

But one can sell bad stuff or skilless stuff too. Sales don't show anything more than a skill in sales themselves.

It could be a book of short stories, perhaps. Plus, with self-publishing these days, the bar to publish is probably the lowest it's ever been.

Nonfiction is only harder if you are trying to make it interesting. Outside of that, it is very much easier.

> But fiction is harder

Too general a statement. Sure, an engaging consistent story is much harder than, say, the average cookbook or travel guide.

But many textbooks in science and math seem like absolutely Herculean effort. Gravitation[1] by Misner, Thorne, & Wheeler (a work of non-fiction) in my opinion would be the equivalent in intellectual effort to several thousand average works of fiction.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Gravitation-Charles-W-Misner/dp/06911...

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