I heard someone say “Cluster F#@k” and it hit me that I could make a story about an Asian-American detective named Phuk. It just struck me that there are so many fun things I could do with this. After that, I wrote a paragraph for the main concept, started naming my characters and then filled in their back-stories.
The background is influenced by the experiences in my life and people close to me. For example, the location is an homage to my parents who lived in Punta Gorda during Hurricane Charley. Their house somehow survived, but the neighbors’ homes were gone. Two of the characters are Muskogee Creek Indian. My wife is one-sixteenth. I was witness to Jellybean’s back-story. And, I am a big car enthusiast.