Keeping the Wood Stove Warm

Writing, Creativity, and the Wood Stove

These autumn days, in the early mornings, after I peel myself out

of bed and make sure our two high school students have woken up, I head downstairs. Usually I’ll pass Maile where she sits in the living room reading beside the lamp, the blinds still closed, darkness peeking through. I keep going down, all the way to the basement, which is considerably warmer than the rest of the house. This is because of the wood stove.

I open the door to the wood stove and, as long as I loaded the stove with wood the night before, a few small coals will flare up in the draft, glowing among the papery ash, pulsing as if they are taking slow breaths. I take some wood from the box and slide it in on the morning’s coals, close the door, and within a few minutes, the fire is roaring again. Some mornings I’ll sit there in the armchair while the basement warms. Sometimes I’ll drift off.

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Last spring we bought this wood stove insert, designed to slide into an existing fireplace, which we have in our basement. I was weary of high utility bills in the winter and had always enjoyed our wood stove back in the days when we lived in a cabin in the woods. So we did it. We bought one. We paid to have it installed and the chimney repaired and late in the spring we had our first fire.

This stove is not one of the new, slim, chic, high-efficiency models—this is an old, used, steel beast that weighed so much it took four of us to move it. It gives off the same vibe as a locomotive from the early days of cross-continental railroads. It carries itself like a tank, disinterested and slightly menacing.

And it devours wood. My dad always said a wood stove is nice because it warms you twice—once when you cut and gather and haul and split the wood, and then when you burn it. Which is true.

At night, I fill the stove and nearly close the air intakes completely, but not quite. A gentle huffing sounds as the fire gasps for air, slowing itself, the stove growing hotter, pushing back the night.

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There’s something I’ve noticed about our wood stove—as long as I keep it warm, I run into no trouble. When the steel is warm and I open the door, the air from the basement is pulled up through the chimney. The heat rises. When I start the fire in a warm stove, the draft pulls the smoke of the new fire up and out into the world. We can smell it when we open our front door. All is well.

But if we go a few days without lighting the fire? Then there’s trouble, because now the steel has grown cold and the frigid winter air comes rushing down the chimney as soon as I open the stove door. Then, if I try to start the fire in a cold chimney, the smoke pours into the basement until I can get the heat rising again. In order to do that I have to turn off the other basement fan and put a small heater in the stove to reverse the air flow.

Lighting a cold stove in the middle of winter isn’t any fun.

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It’s been a while since I’ve written fiction. I feel like a cold stove. When I sit down, I’m choking on smoke and trying to fight the air flow, all of it coming out the door, going the wrong way.

I know how it feels to write with my creativity warm, simply putting some fuel on the fire and watching everything light up. But it’s been a while. I want to get back into the daily habit, feel the words warm.

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What do you do when your stove of creativity has gone cold? How do you get the air flowing in the right direction again?

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One thing that helps warm the fires of creativity is community. If you’re in the Lancaster area, join our monthly writer’s breakfast at Nooks on Saturday from 9am-10am. It’s a kind of potluck brunch, so bring something to share, if you can, but if you can’t, don’t let that keep you away. There’s always plenty of food and drink for everyone.

Follow us over at our Nooks Substack page to keep up with the goings-on at our little independent bookstore and all the good books we’ve been reading! Thanks for supporting our new venture!