‘Creativity needs oxygen just as much as fire does.’
What does it take to turn a spark of inspiration into a sustained creative fire?
This week’s episode is a reflection on the art of making fire, from striking the first spark with flint and steel to nurturing the ember with just the right balance of oxygen and fuel, and how that process sheds light on the creative process. More specifically, it’s about the moment I found myself grinning like a loon while holding a flaming bundle of hay on my recent Write it Wild retreat. (Yes, really. Check out the episode artwork.)
Discover how permission, preparation, process, and patience all play a role not just in spark-wrangling, but in idea-wrangling too. And we’ll talk about the art of holding your nerve when things get smoky.
Whether you’re at the start of your writing journey or tending an idea that’s been smouldering for a while, this one’s for you.
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How do you turn a spark into a flame?
If you’re going to start a fire you need four things: permission, a source of heat, fuel, and oxygen.
Funnily enough, that’s how creativity works, too.
Most people reach for prepackaged fire, of course: a lighter, a match. But the most satisfying fire is the one you bring into existence yourself.
The flames you see in my hands in the artwork for this episode began as a spark struck from a piece of flint. Creating sparks isn’t hard: it’s capturing those sparks and turning them into something you can work with that’s the problem. I must have generated hundreds of the damn things, patiently striking steel against flint, watching them all expire uselessly in the air, until finally one spark landed and caught on the piece of charcloth – oxidised fabric – I was holding on top of the flint.
Once the charcloth has caught, you’re in business. The fleeting heat of the spark is translated into a slow, steady ember. At this point you place the glowing scrap of charcloth into the nest of hay you’ve prepared (you prepared your nest of hay, right?) with any other tinder to hand – birch bark, cramp balls, rosebay willow herb fluff, whatever’s in your tinderbox.
You hold up your nest of hay and you gently blow precious oxygen into it: not so hard that you blow out that delicate ember, but not so gently that the cloth burns out before it can transfer its heat to the hay.
Gradually, as you cycle through blowing and releasing (making sure not to breathe in while the bundle is close to your face), the smoke begins to come: first in wisps so faint you think you might have imagined them, then suddenly in great billowing waves. And this is where the inexperienced think the job is done, and quickly put down the bundle into the firepit before it burns their hands, but in fact this is the point at which you must hold your nerve. You watch the smoke’s density and you listen carefully for the tell-tale crackling that tells you the flame is established, and then finally, gloriously, one last blow and the top of the nest of hay is suddenly ablaze.
And now, only now, you place the flaming bundle into the firepit, and quickly but gently add the tiny pieces of kindling you have standing ready (you have them standing ready, right?), gradually adding in thicker twigs as the tiny ones catch, making sure not to overload your fragile new fire, leaving gaps through which the oxygen it needs can circulate.
And once it’s well established, all you have to do is throw on an occasional log as you sit smugly beside the fire that you made, sipping a brew made from water boiled over it, watching the flames dance, warming yourself, having the kind of conversations you only have sitting around a campfire.
It’s wonderful. But what’s it got to do with the creative process?
For a fire you need the permission of the landowner: for creativity, you really just need permission from yourself. But it’s amazing how often we withhold that, or don’t even ask for it.
The spark might be a fleeting idea or insight, but if you’re not standing by with a prepared mind and a process/resources for catching and developing it, it will almost certainly just evaporate.
And oxygen? Well, I’d argue that creativity needs oxygen just as much as fire does. Time outdoors, space to breathe, is just as valuable for idea-wrangling as it is for fire-lighting. Which is why Write it Wild works so brilliantly.
How do you nurture a spark into a useful fire? With permission, with preparation, with a process, with oxygen.
Hope you enjoyed that – and if you want to discover it for yourself and get the coolest picture ever of you literally holding fire, the Write it Wild 2026 booking link is on the shownotes at extraordinary businessbooks.com.
