Folks often ask me where I get the ideas from for my books – especially the first eight in the Texas Miz Mike series which are filled with non-stop adventure. The best answer – I make them up – often in unexpected and unintended ways…like falling down a hole.

Like…a deep hole. Like one that would have dropped me down a rock cliff into the sea—except I was still holding Savannah’s leash and poor Savannah—all 45 pounds of her—stopped my plummet.

Plummet stopped, but it rains in Scotland. Like…a lot. Everything is wet. And slippery. And slimy. Including said hole. I paused in my fall with my head two feet below the grass rim of the hole, completely out of sight, not that anyone was around anyway. Savannah and her leash secured me on the left side and thorn-wrapped vegetation and a shrub with skinny limbs stopped me on the right side. But I was too far down the slippery hole to make it back to the top.

I hadn’t seen the hole. It was hidden by tall grass and a mass of ferns and shrubs. I had walked over to the bush to drop some of Savannah’s collie hair down for the birds. They love it to use to line their nests. I hadn’t intended to drop along with the fur.

As I struggled to transfer all my weight to the poor little shrub beside me and give Savannah’s neck a rest, a cap of white hair appeared at the rim of the hole. “Did you fall down there?” Well, I could forgive her question, because she had been pulling her car out of her driveway across the road and spotted Savannah standing at the edge of the cliff by herself. She came to check on Savannah, who had had enough sense not to fall down the hole.

Where was a video recorder when something funny happened? The lady, who must have been all of 4-foot-ten and perhaps as much as 100 pounds decided to help me up out of the hole. I’m 5-foot-seven and I’d rather not disclose my weight other than to admit that it is substantial.

Praying to Jesus the entire time—because the Bible promises, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me,” I clawed my way up on the roots of the poor little bush and gained a little more than a foot of height. My head was now only slightly out of sight. That’s when my rescuer went to work. She encouraged me to let go of the swaying bush holding my weight and grab her arm. I might have been dim-witted enough to fall down the hole myself—but I could see what would happen to my sweet rescuer if I grabbed her arm with all of my…substantial weight. Instead, I grabbed the grass around the hole and pulled on it while she pulled on one of my arms. And therein the humor. That sweet soul wrestled with me like a Jack Russell terrier at the end of a bone. She kept apologizing for not being stronger, but what she lacked in strength she made up for in determination. Inch by inch I gained more solid ground under the upper part of my body and snake-slithered further away from the dark abyss below.

Folks here in Dunoon are amazingly kind. While I was still in a prone position on the grass with my feet dangling over the hole, a gentleman also in his eighties clomped up on his stick, dropped the stick, grabbed me, and helped hero-lady get me to my feet. I was laughing and praising Jesus. I’m sure they thought I had taken a leave of my senses—but I was just thankful to God for His protection and intervention.

Lesson from the hole incident; stay away from attractively disguised sins. They might look harmless from a distance—but get close and you will get sucked into a painful and hopeless situation.

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