apending to just inserted element

apending to just inserted element

Hi all,

I'm pretty new with jQuery, so I apologize if this is a pretty straightforward issue.

Basically, I am trying to create code that will write a web-widget. So I have:
$('<div/>')
   .attr('id', 'someId')
   .insertBefore(elm);
$('<p/>')
   .appendTo('#someId');


This gives an error, but if I change #someId to the id of an element already existing on the screen, things run fine.

I find that I can do

$('<div/>')
   .attr('id,'someId')
   .append('<p/>');
   .insertBefore(elm);


And this does pretty much what I want, but it seems like it is going to get super-confusing once things get realistically complex.

Is there a way to get the first example to work, and is there a way I could be doing this better in general?

I really appreciate the help.

-Nicky