Soru

While contemporary critics often attributed the novelist’s prolific output to a rare and effortless genius, her personal letters reveal a far more disciplined and exhausting reality. She adhered strictly to a punishing daily schedule, rising before dawn to compose draft pages for six hours before even beginning to attend to her extensive correspondence. This relentless industry, rather than any sudden or erratic spark of divine inspiration, sustained her through the decade-long composition of her monumental history of the region. Without such systematic and grueling labor, she noted, the project would have collapsed under its own weight.

As it is used in the third sentence of the passage, the word *industry* most nearly means which of the following?