In April 2024 I first had the idea of a whimsical children's fantasy picture book about an old goblin woodcarver who encounters God.  My first title was The Woodcarver : A Tale of the Christ.  I wrote my first draft and did some initial character renders, one of who ended up being Grubnik, and they were good.  I also did a lot of AI renderings for a purely gospel story featuring Jesus and His miracles, with a really sculptural art style.  I was also really pleased with these, and I still keep these in mind for a future book.​  I was always a big fan of Jim Henson growing up, and I think his influence shows in both my body of artwork and in Marmsie's Miracle Dreams. 

In late 2024 I got a bit busy in my employment running a High School Makerspace (3D printing, laser cutting) as well as teaching sculpture at Papakura High School in South Auckland, so the book went on the back burner for a while.​ 

But in mid-July 2025 I rewrote the story with Marmsie as the granddaughter and the new central protagonist.  This worked a lot better than my earlier drafts.  So from the end of July I worked on the book steadily in my spare time. 

Once I got to late September I started to push very hard on the book and by the grace of God the work was complete by 10 November 2025.  This was way ahead of schedule - because of the ambitious illustrations and compositions I had expected to not be finished until around mid-January 2026.​

Throughout my writing of this story I've tried to keep the majesty and mystery of Christ central to the tale.  I've also tried to create a believable fantasy world that exists independent of this one story, as I'm hopeful that the book will be popular enough that I can return to Thistlebrook Vale and it's interesting characters in future books.  ​I hope you and your child are blessed by, and enjoy, my book.  It was a labour of love.