Actually, thinking about it, making a pen is easier than making a dowel
- no whip as it's got an chunk of steel through it and it'll only be 4
inches long, in two pieces at that. The only hard part is that it must
be close to a certain diameter. Of course all bets are off if you're
doing something fancy like desk pens, wood finials, odd shapes, fancy
inlays or spirals. I now make pens that are all wood (no metal parts
other than one 2mm tube, two 7mm tubes, the mechanism, and the re-fill)
from just two pieces of wood, a spiraled walnut one looks like a
Tootsie Roll.

I doubt you'll be making much stove fodder, I didn't when I made my
first ones - pen and pencil sets for everybody on my Christmas list and
I wasn't (still am not) very good with the lathe. Although I won't say
they were really good, but they were as good (better, I think) as the
ones I've seen in stores.