But I’m always trying to gather what I call“firewood.” So I have piles of things I can go to and see if they’llwork.
Similar to Eminem's "stacking ammo" or Gerald Weinberg's "fieldstone method", David Lynch gathers piles of "firewood" from which he can draw to fire his creativity.
In various places in the book, Lynch uses the idea of drawing on piles of ideas and using his feedback to draw out creativity: his collaboration on music with Angelo Badalamenti in which he draws out ideas through conversation and having the prop man bring in various props with similar feedback. The music and props here are both forms of creative "firewood".