The writing of the book cost her ten years of hard work.

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

1.The writing of the book cost her ten years of hard work.
2.The writing of the book cost her ten years.

Is the usage of ‘cost’ in sentence1 old-fashioned? Should we change ‘cost’ to ‘took’?
What about sentence2? Is the usage of ‘cost’ not old-fashioned, but incorrect?

2

1–In my (non-native) view, ‘cost’ sounds more emotional, implying how serious she treated her work, with ‘took’ only stating the fact.
2–To me ‘cost’ sounds neither old-fashioned nor incorrect. You may find ‘cost something’ in abundance in sporting contexts, and it sounds perfectly OK eg: The Red Bull blunder that could cost them a shock title victory OR: The blunder that cost the Seahawks the Super Bowl.

3

‘how seriously’ of course…