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Mélanie Watt had a plan. But not just any plan.

She was going to write a book about a squirrel. But not just any squirrel.

She was going to write about Scaredy Squirrel, who is kinda nutty. And she was going to make it good.

Of course, she didn't know how good. She didn't know it would win several awards. She didn't know it would be translated into six languages. Or that Scaredy Squirrel would be so popular, she would write another one, Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend, and then another, Scaredy Squirrel at the Beach, due in March, 2008.

She didn't know that big people - adults - would like the books too. And who could have imagined that the Harvard University bookstore would recommend it as a graduation present? (That's a place where big, pointy-headed people go to school.)

Back then, in 2005, she was obsessed (her word) with making a living as a children's book author.

Even her partner of 14 years, Ernesto, a very nice man who installs and programs computers, was worried about how much time she spent in her home studio. "You need to get out more," he said.

She nodded. Then, here's what she did:

She went back to her studio. She got some paper. She got her pencils.

She took Scaredy from the drawer of her desk. (He had been squirrelled away there, in an earlier version of the story, for almost five years.)

She looked out her window at Montreal. She may have even spoken to her nine-year-old parrot named Kiwi. He certainly speaks to her, but only in French. Loose translation of his favourite line: "How is the little bird doing?"

Sometimes, he even mews like a cat. But did she hear him?

Mélanie, now 32, was lost in thought about her squirrel. Then, a thought bubble surfaced! She decided to be ridiculous.

"I thought, 'Oh, maybe I just have to have fun with it, to let myself be totally creative.' "

(In the earlier version, Scaredy Squirrel had not been such a charming worrywart. He didn't know he was a flying squirrel because he hadn't attempted to leave his nut tree. That part was the same. But he was sort of a knight in mangy fur, saving birds stuck in other trees. "It was really lame," Mélanie giggles.)

This time, she made him paranoid.

"I decided to make him afraid of silly things: killer bees, germs, Martians," she says. He is neurotic, and he likes to make lists.

Which is understandable, if you know Mélanie.

She has some fears, too, many that are the same as Scaredy Squirrel's. Here is her list:

Germs. "I never open a door with my hand. I use my sleeve. And on the subway, you will never see me holding that pole thing with my bare hands."

Sharks. "It's hard to go swimming at a beach. I can only go where it's shallow."

Putting her head underwater. "I hate the whoooh sound."

Crowds.

Food caught in her teeth.

Public speaking.

Reading in front of kids. (Weird, eh? They don't even have big teeth.)

Losing her passport. "When I travel, I have to check I have it so many times."

Ernesto, concerned once again for his girl, made her go through a list (yes, another one) of what she would have to do if she did, in fact, lose it.

Leaving home for a strange city. "My publisher wanted me to go to Chicago. I said, 'Alone? I have never taken a plane alone.' And I thought, 'Oh my, I can't do this!' But then I thought, 'I have to do this!' "

See? She was afraid to leave her tree. Just like Scaredy.

Luckily, once on strange land, she had her rock, Ernesto, to call. "As soon as I got to Chicago, I called him. I talked to him for half an hour. Oh, that bill was terrible. But to get on an airplane, to get a cab to a hotel in a city I don't know? That's soooo big."

Scaredy Squirrel has changed her world.

"It's kind of been like therapy. Because of him and the success he's been having, he's got me out of my tree, out there meeting new people and trying new things."

Mélanie was born in a little place called Trois-Rivières in Quebec. She didn't know what she wanted to be when she grew up. Her father insisted she go into administration.

So she did. She took accounting courses and lessons on how to work in Excel. "I was so bad at it," she confesses.

She was creative, but didn't know it. Which is a bit like a flying squirrel who didn't know he could flatten himself like a sail. It was her hidden treasure; a nut in a snowbank.

So what did she do? She made a list, natch.

"I knew more about what I didn't want to do than what I did want to do," she recalls.

She went to another college to learn about technical graphic design skills. After that, she went to the University of Quebec in Montreal to study design. "At first, I was feeling that I wasn't enough of an artist to be there."

Others students did dark and dramatic projects. "Me? My projects were about little happy animals." In one class, for a project about complementary colours, she came up with a character called Leon, The Chameleon. Her teacher suggested she translate the text into English (Mélanie spoke mostly French) and send it to a publisher.

Why, she wanted to know. Because it's good, the teacher told her.

So she did. They published it. Mélanie has created several other books, sometimes just as the person who draws the pictures. But it wasn't until Scaredy Squirrel that she broke out of her creative shell. "I didn't even know if I was funny," she says.

Here then is the lesson of the story about the Girl Who Didn't Know What She Could Do. Life is unpredictable. You never know what is out there to discover and what opportunities will come your way.

Prepare yourself. Have an emergency kit. In Scaredy Squirrel's kit, he keeps all sorts of things. He is still a little scared of what's out there, even though when he ventures out he finds nice things, including people and dogs, and has a good time.

Mélanie has a self-help kit, too.

Of course she doesn't think she has one, and never mentions it. But you know, by talking to her, that she does.

Here's the list of what's in there.

A pencil. Some paper. A note to sometimes-wobbly self: You are an author, and a good one, so on your customs form at the airport you can list it as your occupation. (Often, she is still too insecure to claim it as her profession.)

Oh, and Ernesto's cellphone number.

shampson@globeandmail.com