How difficult is it to write fiction?

As for life’s little difficulties, they are myriad. What writer hasn’t had to work with a toothache, with bills due, with a baby sick in the next room or the same room, with the in-laws visiting, or at the end of a love affair, or with the government demanding the filling out of endless forms?

Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction Patricia Highsmith, 1983

I might add: running away sheep, barking dogs, being under the blankets cause there’s no electricity to use a heater, two cats using you as a warm couch, yadda yadda.