How my Zombie Apocolypse Novel "The Enraged" was born.

I'm often asked how I came up with the idea for my novel, "The Enraged". Today I'll share with you how it all began. First I need to give credit to my talented and artistic brother Dave Wilde for planting the seed. I can't remember exactly when it happened, I'm guessing it was seven or eight years ago, when he told me he was writing a zombie novel. He had just read an apocalyptic novel and the ending had rubbed him wrong. He decided he'd write his own. Being a person who loves to write, I was excited for him.
Then, this crazy thing happened, my mind EXPLODED. It was like nothing I had never experienced before, or since to be honest. Like a part of my brain that had been dormant my entire life suddenly awakened and started to fire on all cylinders. It was incredible... magical.
I kept thinking about his novel which prompted me to call him on several occasions. "Hey, Dave, I have a great idea for your book..."
But, the more I called him the stronger my feeling grew that my ideas didn't jive with the book he was writing. No hard feelings, he wanted to write his own story. Being the incredible caring person that he is, he politely kept telling me that he'd consider the idea, but I knew that once we hung up, my suggestions would die.
Still, I couldn't stop thinking about it. The ideas kept flowing to the front of my brain, dominating all other thoughts. It was all I could think about. Then an idea, struck me like lighting, as if God himself force it into my mind.
WRITE YOUR OWN BOOK!!!
The thought was so loud in my head that I knew that I never sleep again if I didn't write my own story.
My mind turned to my beautiful wife. I deeply revere and admire her. Mentally, morally, spiritually, and physically, she is the strongest person I know. I wondered, what would happen to her if she found herself in a suddenly crumbling world, being chased and attacked by infected humans? I believe that in a world of zombies or any apocalyptic situation, my wife would not only survive, she would thrive, surprising herself with her resourcefulness and inner strength. Shay Donovan was born, though I didn't have a name for her yet.
I immediately started pounding on the keyboard relentlessly for more than four hours. I wrote the basic story start to finish in just over 20,000 words. I would describe the feeling of when the idea hit me as frantic almost like if I stopped typing, I would forget something important, or even worse, where the story was going.
When I finally hit the end, I sat back thinking about what to name my future novel. I wrote down several ideas before calling my buddy Clint to bounce them off him. First I told him the story and we talked about it for an hour or so. By the end of our conversation, I had set the name for my novel, "The Enraged". One of the interesting things to me is that I thought it would end up being one book. I knew 20,000 words wasn't enough, but I had left out many descriptions and details.
As it sits now, the series will end up being three, possibly even four books.
A few days after my initial writing, I had the thought that if I was going to base my main character off my wife, she should be the one to name her. She came up with the name, Shay. The name was perfect!
And now, after years of waking up at 5:00 am to hone my craft and write my story, "The Enraged" is ready to be presented to the masses. May the world be ripe and ready to eat my novel up.

Release for my novel is set for September 2017.