Muscles, Development Of

Three items:

• Watching The Unusuals, a new cop show, I had to admire Jeremy Renner's well-buffed muscles, displayed nicely at the beginning of episode 3 (about a minute in). Bespeaks lots of time at the gym. I really admire the work those muscles represent.

• One of my sisters-in-law has naturally admirable musculature. She has--without doing anything--toned, beautiful, sculpted, Linda Hamilton movie star arms. Regardless of how much I ever work out at the gym (which I haven't been doing at all), I will never have arms like that.

• A day or so ago, flipping open a magazine randomly, I saw a piece advising bicyclists how to strengthen their arms/upper body. In a series of photos, a woman demonstrated the exercises described. I was happy to see that she looked like a regular, real woman, not an impossibly skinny model, but noted her arms didn't look amazing. Then I turned the page. The last exercise involved holding yourself in a full push-up position while raising one arm at a time up behind your back holding a weight. In that photograph, her arms were a portrait of muscles at work. When push came to shove, she had awesome arms.
  

The lesson: Some people are naturally good writers. Everyone can benefit from practice. Lots of writing needs only solid, not spectacular, skills. But great writing is a combination of talent and effort. The proportion of talent to practice varies for each person.