That is comparatively easy, and if he have a conscience in regard to his task, work will be done regularly.
But to think it over as you lie in bed, or walk about, or sit cosily over your fire, to turn it all in your thoughts, and make the things fit,--that requires elbow-grease of the mind.

The arrangement of the words is as though you were walking simply along a road.

The arrangement of your story is as though you were carrying a sack of flour while you walked.

Fielding had carried his sack of flour before he wrote _Tom Jones_, and Scott his before he produced _Ivanhoe_.

So had Thackeray done,--a very heavy sack of flour,--in creating _Esmond_.