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Consider it from an engineering perspective:

Problem: I write some code, but it doesn't work very well.

Solution: Write a lot of code every day for a few years.

The implication is that you learn what kinds of things are good and bad through practical experience, rather than simply re-writing the same implementation/prose every day.

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But in the case of the commenter I was responding to, they had already gathered a lot of experience through work. This isn't a matter of learning (as they "know" what they have to do), but apparently the solution simply requires such expenditure of time, even for someone who is a professional writer.

Sort of. I have done a lot of nonfiction writing and reporting, including stuff for newspapers and magazines and so on. So I know the general ability to write at a reasonably high level is there. So I know a book is "in me" in a general sense.

But to write a book would still require a lot of practice and trial and error and a serious committment. Which is likely where many others trip up as well.

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