SgtMike provided a wonderful description to help answer the question - the right materials, equipment and technique all add up to the successful beginning to a roaring fire. I would only have a couple of minor adds. Keep in mind it's the "fuzzy edges" of your tinder that enables it to easily catch, such as the fuzzyness of the obvious cotton ball or dryer lint. A flat leaf, even though bone dry, requires much effort while a pile of crumbled up dead leaves requires less do to all those little edges available to catch the spark. A small pile of pitchwood shavings will catch pretty good, too, but not quite as quickly as the fuzzy edged stuff. Another trick I discovered is to make the strike with the edge of the (dry) cotton ball between the striker and the rod. This way you're not "throwing" the sparks at the tinder, you're "throwing" flaming tinder at more tinder. No aiming required to get that cotton ball going and now you can add the other more flammable tinder to it to really get things started. Just my 2 cents.