The Cat I Needed vs. The Cat I Had

The first version of Oscar's story involved my own children going on an underground journey through an enchanted cave system beneath a wisteria tree.

It was fine. I enjoyed writing it. But it wasn't the story I needed to tell. I come back to that story from time to time and have updated it quite a lot, maybe someday I will publish it. But I wanted something else, there was another story the fat cat needed.

There was more than one story in that fat cat. More than one adventure to tell. While writing the wisteria cave story I realized that I liked 'beauty in the shadows' type art and literature and perhaps I could weave a little of that into these stories. At that point, I settled on a name for the cat in these stories - Shadow.