Sometimes a story will come in a brief flash of inspiration. Other times it takes years for the right pieces to materialize and fall into some decent design. This one actually has a bit of both.

The antagonist of this story I dreamed up as a teenager, inspired by a throw-away line in the Aerosmith song, "Don't Get Mad Get Even." Twice I had tried to write a story with him in it, but nothing seemed to stick.

The rest of it didn't hit me until one night when I was taking a steaming hot bath in a Howard Johnsons just outside of New Orleans. It was May, 2005. I had been in the city hanging fliers for one of my websites, hoping to catch the interest of a writer's conference that never materialized.

Reading my travel guide and walking about the French Quarter put me in the mind to write about the city, but I didn't have a story. Then this old bugaboo came slamming back out of his watery grave, and by the time the drive back to Tallahassee was done, I had the story fully formed in my head.

I wrote it out and almost a month to the day Hurricane Katrina hit and nearly washed the city from the face of the earth.

Coincidence?

God I hope so.