In the beginning there was a cat...

Lesson #1: No writing is ever wasted.  Even if it's just a stepping stone to the next idea - you couldn't reach the next idea without it.

I don't know about you, but my best ideas come to me just as I'm falling asleep.  Not great if, like me, you've got someone lying in the bed next to you, who really doesn't want their eyeballs burnt out of their sockets by the bedside lamp.
One day, I'm going to patent a pen with a bulb in the barrel, so that when you click it the nib lights up the page so you can see what you're writing.  It would save many writers' marriages, I'm sure.  And possibly even a few lives.

Fortunately, on this occasion, I was having a daytime nap whilst my youngest daughter was sleeping, so I didn't spend the next half hour lying awake trying to think of inventive ways to remember it when I woke up. Instead, I reached for my notepad, which I always keep close at hand, and began scribbling away the poem that had popped into my head.  It went something like this...

You may notice that it isn't that great.  Nor is it a children's poem.  But it was this little nugget of something that led to the creation of Sir Nibbles, The Famouse Cupboard Raider Extraordinaire.  So, how exactly did I get from here to a story about a mouse preparing for a daring raid on the farmhouse?  Well, I'm glad you asked.  Before there was ever a mouse, there was a cat...

Now, I thought to myself, I want to break up the rhythm here and make it a bit more interesting...

It was at this point that I realised that it was developing potential as a children's story.  Though, a cat who is stalking a mouse isn't the usual focus of a story for children.  Not even for The Brothers Grimm.  So, I started to imagine what the mouse was like, what his name would be and what he was up to.  And that's how Sir Nibbles was born.  In fact, he got his full title long before Smokey, The Catcher of Small Creatures (Scourge of Mousekind) ever got his.

That was May 2013.  And, after months of writing and rewriting to get it 'perfect' (although I still can't resist fiddling with it, even now) and trying, and failing, to get Sir Nibbles traditionally published, I've bitten the bullet and decided to publish it myself.  And tell you all about the highs and lows (and practical advice I have to offer through learning it the hard way myself) of the journey.  How it will all turn out, well, only time will tell.