I had been driving to work for over a year looking at the same, incomplete shell of a corporate office and every time I did I wished I produced movies, because that thing was IT. Biter's Bend to a T. The Elevated Platform Station, or EPS - an abandoned, partially constructed high-rise office complex taken over by Breckenrock Corporation when they registered a land-lease to operate a sanctioned safe zone inside the quarantine zone. The starting location of book 3, and the only remaining safe haven in the Plagued States of America.

In the original incarnation of Biter's Bend (back when I was writing book 1 and I only really knew for sure what Biter's Hill and Biter's Island looked like and where they were located), I imagined a lot of stone and steel, but most of it underground. Inspiration for the EPS came from this building I watched rise every day for months...then it just languished with its empty guts exposed for everyone to see, as permits were slow and nothing happened for days. That's when I knew I needed an incomplete building as the anchor location at Biter's Bend.

The train came to me when I went to a family reunion next to a railroad museum. My son and I climbed all over the trains after nightfall using just smartphones as flashlights, and (of course) my wife was pretty upset with us about it, but we got to climb through a bunch of engines and that's when I knew I needed to have a train...with a snow blower.

Oh, and if you haven't read book 3, sorry for the spoiler, but at least you know there's a train and an unfinished corporate office building in it now.

I know my inspiration story doesn't sound cool like "I was working on a ship in the Antarctic protecting baby seals from Russian poachers when..." but the life of a writer isn't all glamor and spotlights.