Any more arduous than reading words?
Yes. Writing something as simple as one's own thoughts requires basically no effort on my part. I waggle my fingers and the words come out, at the end I quickly check to make sure that there are the correct number of 'R's in library and suchlike, and then I hit submit. It's not arduous or consuming much of time or mental faculty - which is why I've always found the "OMG, why you write to much?" line of take down attempt to be baffling.
As for reading, it's a wholly different matter. The amount of effort to write something is based exclusively on one's ability as a writer. There's nothing else out there to make it more or less difficult. Conversely, when dealing with a text that has been penned by somebody else, the quality of their writing is inextricably linked to how easy or difficult to text is to follow. A piece of writing that is boring, poorly written or (in my case at least) formatted in a headache inducing shade of lime green is going to be strenuous to get through regardless of ones reading level.
That's why I find the time to pen thousand word posts about why Lou Thesz is better than you, but don't consider there to be enough hours in the day to slog through all of the RPs that get submitted.