Introducing Catnaps: A Writer and Illustrator’s Journey

Some ideas arrive loudly. Others curl up beside you, blink slowly, and wait to be noticed.

Catnaps belongs to the second kind.

It began as a small creative thought, the kind that follows you around while you make tea, sharpen pencils, or pause by a window for longer than planned. I had painted two portraits of my cat, Charlie, and wasn’t sure who the audience would be and somehow, this sparked the idea of creating a narrative around them. I wanted a place where my writing and illustration could sit together naturally. Not as separate parts of my work, but as companions. Words and pictures have always helped me make sense of the world, and Catnaps is my way of bringing them into the same cosy room.

At its heart, Catnaps is about quiet stories, curious characters, and the tiny details that often get overlooked. It is a creative home for illustrated writing with a soft spot for cats, rest, observation, and those gentle in-between moments that can carry more meaning than they first seem to.

This is an introduction to Catnaps, but it is also an introduction to me as a writer and illustrator: how I work, what I notice, and why I keep returning to stories that feel like they have paws, whiskers, and a mind of their own.

What Catnaps is becoming

Catnaps is a creative project built around illustrated storytelling. It is a place for short pieces, visual ideas, character sketches, reflective writing, and perhaps, over time, longer stories too.

The name felt right because it holds more than one meaning.

A catnap is brief, restorative, and often taken in a patch of sunlight. It suggests rest without heaviness. It also has a cat tucked neatly inside it, which matters. Cats are excellent story subjects because they are both familiar and mysterious. They can be comic, elegant, chaotic, suspicious, affectionate, and completely uninterested in human plans, sometimes all within the same five minutes.

That mix is exactly what I love in creative work.

Catnaps gives me room to explore:

• Small illustrated stories that capture a mood or moment

• Cat characters with distinct habits, expressions, and inner lives

• Reflections on creativity and the quiet work of making things

• Sketches and notes from the process behind finished pieces

• Gentle humour drawn from everyday observation

  
  

I am drawn to work that feels intimate rather than grand. A cat curled in a laundry basket. A cup of tea going cold beside a notebook. A character deciding whether to be brave, or whether to go back to sleep. These are small scenes, but small scenes can open onto large feelings.

Catnaps is not about rushing towards a single finished form. It is about building a world slowly, one line, one sentence, and one whisker at a time.

Why cats keep finding their way into my work

Cats are natural storytellers, though they would never admit it.

They enter a room as if the room has been waiting for them. They sit in boxes that are too small. They stare at invisible things. They treat closed doors as personal insults. They can turn a windowsill into a throne and a cardboard tube into an enemy.

As a writer, I like the way cats invite questions.

What did they hear? Why did they pause? What are they planning? Why is that chair suddenly terrifying? Their behaviour leaves space for imagination, and imagination is where stories begin.

As an illustrator, I love their shapes. A cat can be a soft comma, a loaf, a question mark, or a dramatic streak of motion. Their bodies are expressive even when their faces remain unreadable. A raised paw, a bent ear, a tail flick, or a slow blink can say more than a long paragraph.

That makes them ideal subjects for picture-led storytelling.

They also bring humour without needing much exaggeration. Reality already does most of the work. Anyone who has watched a cat misjudge a jump, then pretend the entire event was planned, knows this.

Still, Catnaps is not only about cats being cute. Cuteness has its place, but I am more interested in character. I want the cats in this world to feel as though they have preferences, grudges, routines, secrets, and odd little philosophies. Some may be bold. Some may be fussy. Some may be dreamers. Some may be tiny tyrants wrapped in fur.

The joy comes from finding the story inside the pose.

Writing in small, careful moments

My writing often begins with noticing.

A phrase arrives before the full idea does. A character appears as a mood before they have a name. Sometimes a story starts from an image: a cat under a chair during a rainstorm, a paw reaching beneath a door, a sleepy face pressed against glass.

I like writing that leaves room for the reader to breathe. That does not mean every piece has to be quiet, but I do value restraint. A short sentence can hold tension. A simple description can carry feeling. A tiny domestic detail can reveal a whole relationship.

With Catnaps, I want the writing to feel clear, warm, and lightly observant. I am interested in the kind of storytelling that notices things such as:

• the sound of paws on floorboards

• the ceremony of choosing the right sleeping place

• the strange dignity of a cat caught doing something foolish

• the way homes change when animals move through them

• the comfort of routine, and the comedy of its interruption

  
  

Writing this way asks for patience. It means staying with a moment long enough to find its shape. It means asking what the scene is really about.

A cat asleep in a chair might be about peace. It might be about loneliness. It might be about trust. It might be about someone finally sitting still after a difficult day.

The surface is simple. The feeling underneath is where the story lives.

Illustration as another kind of sentence

For me, illustration is not decoration added after the writing is done. It is part of the storytelling.

A drawing can carry tone instantly. It can show hesitation, mischief, warmth, or worry before a sentence explains anything. It can make a character feel real through posture and proportion. It can add a joke in the corner, or a small emotional detail in the tilt of a head.

When I draw for Catnaps, I think about rhythm in much the same way I do when I write. Some lines need to be quick and lively. Others need to be soft. A page can feel crowded or calm depending on how much space I leave around the subject.

I enjoy the conversation between words and pictures. Sometimes a drawing makes the writing shorter because the image has already said enough. Sometimes a sentence changes the way the image reads. The best moments happen when both parts support each other without competing.

A cat sitting alone on a doorstep tells one story. Add the sentence, “He had forgiven everyone, but only in theory,” and the image changes. Add a chipped saucer, a row of muddy pawprints, or a bird watching from a fence, and it changes again.

That is what excites me about working as both writer and illustrator. I can move between language and image until the piece finds the right balance.

The kind of world I want Catnaps to hold

Every creative project has a weather of its own. Catnaps feels like late afternoon light, soft blankets, rain on glass, and the sudden crash of something falling in another room.

It has calm in it, but not without humour. It has tenderness, but not without mischief. It is gentle, but I do not want it to become sugary. Cats are far too complicated for that.

The world of Catnaps can hold comfort and oddness at the same time. That matters to me. The best cosy stories still have texture. They include frustration, stubbornness, curiosity, and small disasters. They allow characters to be imperfect.

I imagine Catnaps as a place where a reader might find:

A soft moment

A funny moment

A reflective moment

A visual moment

A cat asleep in a sunbeam after causing complete chaos

A dignified character losing a battle with a paper bag

A quiet thought about rest, attention, or belonging

A sketch that says more through posture than explanation

The tone I keep returning to is warm but observant. I want the work to feel welcoming, but also specific. Not a vague idea of cosiness, but the real kind: crumbs on the plate, pencil shavings on the table, a cat hair stuck to the page, a half-finished thought that turns into a drawing.

That is where Catnaps lives.

A little more about me as a maker

I am both a writer and an illustrator, and I find it difficult to separate the two.

When I write, I see images. When I draw, I hear fragments of sentences. A character’s expression might suggest a line of dialogue. A line of description might tell me how a room should look. The two practices keep handing ideas back and forth.

My creative process is not always neat. Some days begin with a planned piece and end with a completely different cat. Some sketches are just warm-ups until one tiny expression makes me stop. Some paragraphs need to sit quietly for a while before I know what they are trying to become.

I have learned to respect that slower process.

Creative work can look tidy once it is finished, but the making of it often includes false starts, crossed-out lines, smudges, and uncertain pauses. I care about those parts too. They show the work becoming itself.

Catnaps gives me a reason to share not only polished pieces, but also the thinking behind them. I want to make room for sketches, experiments, character notes, and reflections on how stories take shape.

That feels honest to the way I work.

I am interested in the craft of small things: choosing the right word, finding the right curve of a tail, deciding whether a character looks annoyed or secretly pleased. These choices may seem minor, but they build the emotional life of a piece.

The more I make, the more I realise that a creative voice is not something you discover once and keep unchanged forever. It grows through use. It becomes clearer each time you follow a genuine interest instead of trying to sound or look like someone else.

Catnaps is part of that growth.

What readers can expect next

Catnaps will continue to grow as I do. I expect it to gather different kinds of work over time, some finished, some exploratory, all connected by the same love of story, character, and illustrated detail.

There may be short illustrated pieces. There may be character introductions. There may be notes about materials, process, and the strange decisions involved in drawing a convincing sleeping cat. There may be reflections on writing, rest, imagination, and the everyday moments that invite a second look.

Most of all, there will be attention.

Attention is at the centre of both writing and illustration. It asks us to slow down enough to see what is actually there. A cat is not just “a cat”. It is a creature with a particular weight, gaze, mood, and way of occupying space. A room is not just “a room”. It is light, clutter, memory, and movement.

When I pay attention, stories appear.

That is the simple promise of Catnaps: to notice, to imagine, and to make something from those small discoveries.

Beginning gently

Introducing a new creative project can feel strange. It is both exciting and a little vulnerable to say, “Here is something I am making. I hope it finds its people.”

But Catnaps feels like the right beginning.

It gives me space to be playful, thoughtful, and curious. It lets me bring together the parts of my work I care about most. It encourages me to follow small moments rather than rush past them.

If Catnaps were a cat, I think it would be the kind that takes a long time to enter the room, then chooses the best chair without asking. It would inspect everything, knock one small object onto the floor, and settle down as though it had always belonged there.

That feels about right.

So this is where the journey starts: with words, pictures, cats, and careful attention. With stories that stretch, curl, pounce, and sleep. With a creative project that reminds me that small things can still be full of life.

Welcome to Catnaps.