Semper Fidelis

Semper Fidelis, or Semper Fi, is Latin for always faithful. It's the motto of the United States Marine Corps. Today is Veterans Day. Yesterday was the 236th anniversary of the Corps.

My dad served in the Marine Corps in World War II. He was a Staff Sergeant and a Drill Instructor. When I started dating in high school, Dad always met the boys at the door -- and he always found a way to mention that he'd been a Marine Corps DI. Not one of my dates ever tried any funny stuff with me.

My dad was a big guy, six-two and about two hundred pounds. His three brothers nicknamed him Herc, short for Hercules. That's my dad in uniform in the photo, taken in San Diego, California.

My parents had five children: my sister Ruthanne, my brother Malcolm, me, Jim and Mark. When we were kids we'd beg Dad to play Marine Corps with us. Here's how the game went: He'd line us up in formation and give us marching orders -- "Right face, har!" Left face, har!" "About face, har!" Within two minutes we'd be turning into each other and tripping over our own feet. Dad would laugh, throw up his hands and tell us we'd never make it as Marines.

Dad served in the South Pacific. He said he couldn't remember the names of the islands he was on. When we could get him to tell us war stories, which was like pulling teeth, they were always funny stories; the crazy way the Australian pilots landed their planes, shooting coconuts out of palm trees with a machine gun. My brother Mal found Dad's Purple Heart in his sock drawer. Dad told Mal he received it for tripping and falling into a foxhole.

Dad died on May 20, 2009. He was 93. Mal looked up his service record online, called me and said, "The names of the islands the old man claimed he couldn't remember are Guadalcanal and Bougainville." That gave us pause and made us wonder about the foxhole story. We could request the specifics of Dad's Purple Heart from the VA, but we haven't. We like the foxhole story just the way Dad told it.

My nephew Brent, my sister Ruthanne's oldest son, wrote and delivered Dad's eulogy. It's a wonderful tribute to my Dad. I'd like to share it with you:

Delmar Olaf Kauffman was born August 12, 1915 in Blue Island, Illinois, the fourth of six children born to Kendall and Agnes Kauffman. He had three older brothers and two younger sisters.

Del met Grace Mary Fletcher in Chicago, and they were married on May 2, 1941. Four months later, Grandpa answered the call of his country. Del was deathly afraid of water and could not swim, so naturally he joined the Marines. Later that year, on December 7, our country was at war. I am unclear exactly how they got Del over the Pacific Ocean, but they did, and he saw combat on Guadalcanal and Bougainville. He fought bravely for his country and received the Purple Heart. He then prepared other brave young men, those who would eventually win the war, as a drill instructor.

After the war, Grandpa worked hard to support his family. After relocating to Independence, Missouri he found his career as a milkman. He worked for Meyer Dairy from 1957 to 1973. In 1958, Grandpa was baptized into the Community of Christ Church. I understand there was a large crowd at Second Church that Easter Sunday...mostly to see if he would actually get into water above his knees.

Grandpa has been kindly described as strong-willed...some would say determined or even stubborn. He would say what was on his mind, and if you didn't like it, that was tough. That personality trait served him well and likely saved his life as he entered the next unexpected and very difficult phase of his life.

In 1976, three years after he'd retired following the death of his wife Grace, Del was mugged and shot in the head. His prognosis was not good. His children prepared themselves to lose their father as well.

After six months in a coma, Del willed himself to get well. With his determination, and with the help of the doctors and the rehabilitation staff at the Topeka, Kansas VA Medical Center, he began a remarkable recovery. He was determined to be independent again. Within five years he had gotten his driver's license back, bought a car, and regained enough strength and mobility to live independently.

The 33 years since the shooting were without question very difficult and trying for Del, but he watched his young grandchildren grow to adulthood and bear him 23 great-grandchildren. He was able to spend a year in England with his son Malcolm, a time he treasured. He watched his daughter Lynn become a successful author. He also buried his first child, my mother Ruthanne. He played cards, he socialized, he laughed, he cried...he lived. For 33 years after he was supposed to die, he lived. He touched the lives of each of us and many others because he lived. He willed himself to live.

It is my prayer that Grandpa will be remembered, remembered as a brave fighter, remembered as a family man, remembered for his sense of humor. Tell your children about him and tell your grandchildren about him. Ask your parents about him and remember him.

I know Grandpa has been reunited with his beloved wife Grace, his daughter Ruthanne, and his brothers and sisters, all of whom passed on before him. I know he has been made whole. I know he is at peace and I am comforted.

I love you, Dad. Semper Fi.

Happy Halloween!

Yes, I'm two days late. Sorry. My back has been giving me fits again (see "Where In the World Was Lynn?"). It just would not put up with long stretches at the computer so I gave it a break.

The photo is our oldest son Chris decked out as a vampire on Halloween. Our grandson Zach will be thirteen in February. I got a little teary-eyed when he told me he was too old to Trick or Treat this year.

Last year he was a character from the Scream movies (which I haven't seen), the one with the warped white mask. The costume had a fake blood bag that Zach squeezed and "blood" oozed out of the eyes. Cool, but gross, so maybe it's a good thing he's outgrown dressing up.

I love Halloween. As soon as the Trick or Treat candy appears in the stores I start stockpiling. Michael and I carve the pumpkin the day before so it's ready to go. I plan Halloween around Trick or Treat, figure what time I need to have dinner over and done with so I can be on duty at the front door to dole out the goodies.

That's my favorite part of Halloween, the Trick or Treaters. I love the little ones, five and under. They're just adorable. When Zach was four he wanted to be a yellow M&M. Not red, not blue -- yellow. I ended up driving to Overland Park, Kansas to buy him a yellow M&M costume. It was worth it. He was hilarious.

Once upon a time we had scads of Trick or Treaters in our neighborhood. But alas, like Zach, the kids grew up and stopped Trick or Treating. Last year we had maybe three kids. I was so disappointed, and so bummed about this year -- until our youngest son Paul and his fiancee Sarah moved into a house in a neighborhood with billions of kids. A neighbor two blocks away warned them to expect 250 Trick or Treaters. I swooned when I heard that, and jumped for joy when Paul and Sarah invited Michael I over to share in the fun.

The weather was perfect Monday night, in the 50s. Porch lights were on up and down Paul and Sarah's block, strings of orange lights twinkled on eaves, jack o'lanterns flickered on doorsteps. Tons of leaves littered the lawns, ready to crunch under little feet.

By 7 PM we had 4 humongous bowls of candy strategically placed by the door. Michael and Paul settled on the couch to watch the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday Night Football (the Chiefs won), while Sarah and I hovered like wraiths at the window -- Sarah loves Halloween as much as I do -- hearts pounding in anticipation of the soon-to-descend horde.

The first wave brought Captain America and Iron Man, an adorable bumble bee and a princess in a pink gown and sparkling tiara. By 7:30 we'd seen three more Captain America, a couple more Iron Man, a fairy, a butterfly, and a handful of witches and ghouls.

Pretty good for the first half hour, we thought. We were pumped, but by 8:00 the steady flow had slowed to a trickle. By 8:30 the sidewalks were empty of kids and porch lights were going out. Sarah and I moved outside onto the front porch swing with a bowl of candy -- maybe the kids would smell it and come -- but it didn't help. The promised 250 turned out to be 40, tops.

At 9:00 we gave up and went inside. Sarah checked the Facebook page of the neighbors two blocks away who'd promised billions of kids. They ran out of candy at 200 Trick or Treaters and turned off the porch light.

Sarah and I concluded that she and Paul live on the wrong end of the neighborhood. For next year we're thinking about setting up a candy stand on the corner -- two blocks away where all the action is.

And how was your Halloween?

A Weird Thing Happened

In 1987 Dell published my single title paranormal romance The Dreaming Pool. I wrote the book as Paula Christopher for my sons Chris and Paul. The plot involves a stolen racehorse owned by the hero, Gage Roundtree. The heroine is Eslin Hillary, a clairvoyant. I figured you’d need a clairvoyant to find a 1200-lb. horse that has apparently vanished off the face of the earth.

My characters finally find the horse in Oaxaca, Mexico. On their way there (Oaxaca is near the border with Guatemala) they stop off in Mexico City. As I was writing this scene, I heard on the 6 o’clock news that a horrible earthquake had flattened a large part of the city. I freaked and called my editor and asked her if I should take Mexico City out of the book. No, she said, because I wasn’t specific about the year my characters were there. She also assured me that I had not caused the earthquake.

But I wondered….

In 1993 I wrote Aftershock for Harlequin Temptation as a part of a 4-book series called Passion’s Quest. Each book centered on one of the four elements, earth, wind, fire and water. I wrote about earth. The plot of Aftershock involves a little gizmo I dreamed up called the TAQ box, which stands for Tremor and Quake Warning Device.

The hero of the story invents it and the heroine’s father steals it. The machine is designed to detect an earthquake, but if you crank it up too high, it will cause one. Of course it falls into the wrong hands and my characters, Sheridan and Rockie, have to get it back before the bad guys blow up a Middle Eastern oil field. Earlier in the book the bad guys use the TAQ box to set off a couple little test quakes in the Mojave Desert.

Aftershock had no sooner hit the bookstores in February of 1994 when the Northridge earthquake struck California. The TAQ box is a figment of my imagination. I did not cause the Northridge quake or the one in Mexico City, but I’ll tell you what -- I’ve sworn off writing about natural disasters.

I do love to write about weird stuff – woo-woo, as I call it – but I was more careful next time. I wrote Nightwing, a vampire story so I wouldn’t have to worry about a sudden invasion of the undead attacking the world.

I also think a lot of the lore about vampires is pretty silly. I wanted to poke fun at it and make a point that has always escaped me when I read vampire stories. I don’t care how gorgeous the vamp is, why would any right-headed woman want to spend eternity with a blood-sucking monster?

To accomplish that I had to change my vampire hero back to a mortal man. That part of the story, the method I used to return Johnny Raven to the land of the living, I made up. I guess I did a pretty good job because I can’t tell you how many people asked me to tell them the title of the book where I’d found all that cool stuff about vampires. I told them I’d made it up, but I’m not sure they believed me.

Temptation had just published Nightwing when I went to Hawaii for the Romance Writers of America's national Conference. Aftershock was a finalist for the RITA award, and I wanted to be there in case I won. I didn't. The next year, Nightwing was a RITA finalist in the Paranormal Category.

About the same time Nightwing came out, Harlequin American published a vampire novel by Margaret St. James aka Maggie Osborne, Love Bites. Great title. Wish I’d thought of it.

At the Harlequin party in Hawaii, I was sitting on a terrace by the beach with my shoes off listening to the surf when four women wandered up and joined me. One of them recognized my name on my conference badge and connected it to Nightwing. She’d read the book and loved it. So much that she told her friends how great the book is and that they must read it. And then she started to tell them the plot – only she told them the plot of Love Bites.

I didn’t say a word. I just smiled and thought, “Oh well. At least she got my name right.”

Aftershock is available on Kindle, Nook and at All Romance Ebooks. Nightwing is also available on Kindle, Nook, and at All Romance Ebooks.

The Story Behind the Story -- Remembrance

This is The Book That I Thought Would Never Sell. Hannibal had an easier time getting the elephants over the Alps than my agent and I had selling this book.

Like Second Sight, Remembrance was a story that I worked on for years, on and off, and like Second Sight, I started writing Remembrance while I was in college. I did a lot of theater in college, one act plays, Nora in The Doll House. I even did musical reviews, but since I have a voice like Lucy Ricardo I was always in the chorus.

Remembrance has a theatrical background, but it's way, way in the background. Fundamentally this is ghost story. Here's the book description:

Cathy Martin doesn't believe in ghosts -- until she arrives at her famous grandmother's home on Martha's Vineyard to coauthor the actress's memoirs. Eight writers have already fled the island, and soon Cathy, too, is questioning the strange goings on -- and the motives of Fin McGraw.

Fin, the embodiment of her late grandfather as a young man, has become the constant companion of Cathy's very eccentric and very rich grandmother. He claims to be a struggling actor, yet his story rings false.

Cathy is suspicious even as she craves his touch, his scorching kisses. Does Fin have love or larceny on his mind?

I used a scene from Remembrance as as assignment in my creative writing course, the scene where Cathy, her grandmother Cat, and Had the gardener all puff like crazy on fat black cigars provided by Cat's major domo, Helmut, to chase away Cat's very selfish and very allergic daughter, Patsy. Everyone in the class laughed when I read it aloud.

When I finished, the professor said that the story might someday make a "very nice little romance novel." That was the first I'd ever heard of romance novels, so I didn't understand his condescending tone. When I figured it out later, and when Remembrance was nominated for a RITA, the Oscar of romance writing from the Romance Writers of America, I thought about looking him up and giving him the raspberry.

Remembrance was my first book for Harlequin. Before Temptation bought it, my agent had sent the book to every romance publisher in New York. For a year and a half Remembrance made the rounds. The editors that read the proposal loved it, but passed on buying the book because they couldn't categorize it. The book is a romance, but it's also a ghost story with a strong reincarnation theme. In those days most publishers were not interested in paranormal stories. Remembrance was a square peg book looking for a home in a world of round hole publishers.

I was bummed, so was my agent, but we'd given it our best shot. I sighed and tucked Remembrance away in a drawer.

About a year later I attended a romance writers conference. Susan Shepherd was then an editor at Temptation. In her workshop she said she was looking for unusual stories, stories that didn't fit the norm of romance. That was Remembrance. I called my agent and told her what Susan had said.

What the heck, we decided. The book was just collecting dust so we brushed it off and sent it to Temptation in Toronto. Since we'd had no takers in New York, neither one of us expected much -- I think that's why we forgot about it. Yep, that's not a typo. We forgot about it.

Almost a year to the day later my agent called, so excited she could hardly talk. Susan Shepherd had called her and wanted to buy Remembrance. I was flabbergasted -- and thrilled.

I dedicated the book to Judy and Marie, members of my critique group, and two of the books toughest critics. They loved Remembrance but told me flat out that the first chapter stunk. Thirty-four times it stunk. I finally got it right on the thirty-fifth draft. That's not a typo, either -- I rewrote the first chapter thirty-five times.

This story has two lessons. One, never give up on a book that you love, and two, keep rewriting till you get it right.

Remembrance is available on Kindle, Nook, and at All Romance Ebooks.

The Story Behind the Story -- Second Sight

Finally PubIt!, the ebook platform at Barnes & Noble, has published the updated file of Second Sight. I have no idea what the hold up was, other than I think the PubIt! customer service department is located on the dark side of the moon. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I hate it when I can't get my hands on a book I want to read so I waited for the book to go live. Sorry for the delay. Don't think I'll do it again. Anyway...

I told you about my easy-peasy sales, now we're getting into the tough ones with Second Sight. This is one of my most favorite books. I love everything about it, so much that I've thought about rewriting the book just so I could play with the characters again.

The first character to introduce herself to me was the heroine, Susan Cade, in a scene when she was thirteen, sitting on the backend of a horse trailer on a two-bit racetrack in Oklahoma. I was a junior in college at the time, struggling through Advanced Rhetoric, one of the toughest courses I ever took. I swear the professor stayed up late combing arcane dictionaries for the most obscure words he could find to bamboozle us with the next day. I was so glad when Susan showed up. Writing about her was way more fun than studying written forms of argument.

I survived Advanced Rhetoric with a B. I didn't understand a single word the professor said, barely passed the exams with D's, but I aced the papers -- and I kept writing about Susan. I followed her from Oklahoma to Foxglove Farm in Virginia, where she met Richard Parker-Harris, her cousin Meredith's stepbrother. For Susan it was love at first sight; for Richard it was instant loathing. His nickname for Susan was Troglodyte. She was the bane of Richard's life at Foxglove, especially after she broke his nose with a riding crop.

I wrote other books, other stories, but I always came back to Susan and Richard. By the time I'd sold my second book to Harlequin I'd written close to 500 pages about Susan adoring Richard, and Richard avoiding her like the plague. Until he came home to the States from England, saw Susan for the first time in eight years and fell instantly in lust with her.

The Patriot, that second book for Temptation, was such an easy sale that I naively thought I had a golden touch. That's embarrassing to admit but it's the truth. This was the perfect time, I decided, to send my editor a proposal for Susan and Richard's story. I named it Gift Horse and popped it in the mail.

I was positive my editor would love the book but she didn't -- she hated it. Most of all she hated Richard. She utterly despised him. She called me and spent ten minutes trashing him and the story I loved. She didn't have one nice word to say. Ouch. I was stunned. Susan was devastated.

About a week later I got the proposal back from my editor with her very detailed notes. I read them and gritted my teeth; read them again and had to take an Excedrin. I was so ticked off. How dare she! What did she know anyway? I had a royal, three-day hissy fit and then I realized, damn it -- she was right.

Richard was a complete jerk. He was not the least bit likable or sympathetic. He had good reasons for behaving like an ass. He drank too much to deaden his emotional pain, but I failed to show that to the reader. I knew better, but I was so enamored with the story and yes, I admit it, my own brilliance (cough) that I blew it.

What do writers do when we blow it? We rewrite.

I rethought the story -- especially the beginning -- and I rethought how I'd portrayed Richard. Then I called my editor. I told her she was right, that I'd rewritten the proposal and asked her if she'd read it again. Fortunately, she said yes. I sent the revised proposal, she read it, she liked it, and she bought Second Sight. Though I still like the title Gift Horse better.

Susan was over the moon. I was happy, and humbled. Here's the moral to this story: sometimes the editor is right.

Gift Horse -- I mean, Second Sight -- is available on Kindle, at All Romance ebooks and finally on Nook.

The Story Behind the Story -- Aftershock

This is the sequel to The Patriot, which was part of the Rebels & Rogues 12-month mini-series from Temptation. Aftershock was part of Passion's Quest. This series was only 4 books, one for each of the four elements. The tagline for the series was "Earth, Wind, Fire and Water...the four elements -- but nothing is more elemental than passion."

Earth is the element I chose to write about in Aftershock, basically because the other three were already taken. Here's the blurb:

Rockie Wexler's father has created a device that predicts earthquakes. Unfortunately it can also cause them, and now both Dr. Wexler and the TAQ box have disappeared. Gutsy and brilliant Rockie knows she needs help to rescue her father from the bad guys. Help arrives in the form of Leslie Sheridan. The hard-edged, self-described pain in the butt turns her world upside down. And Sheridan has his own reasons for hating anyone with the name of Wexler.

The TAQ box, short for Tremor and Quake Warning Device, is a figment of my imagination. A couple nights ago I heard a snatch of a radio program about Nikola Tesla, the great 19th-century inventor. He was tinkering with a machine something like the TAQ box. According to the snippet I heard, when the cops and the fire department showed up outside his lab one night after he'd tested the device, he took a hammer to the machine and smashed it to bits.

I hadn't heard that story when I wrote the Prologue for Aftershock, so that was kind of freaky. So was the research I did on earthquakes. I started noticing rock formations and land features as I was out driving around and ended up scaring myself when I realized how many earthquakes had likely occurred around here over the eons.

Aftershock was one of the easiest books I've ever written. It pretty much wrote itself, and that worried me. Easy and effortless isn't a guarantee of good. I kept wondering if I'd screwed up someplace. I fretted that the book was awful, that readers would hate it, but when Aftershock came out I got a ton of letters from readers saying how much they'd loved it. Whew!

My artist friend Judy Johnson designed the cover for the ebook of Aftershock. I love Judy's cover because it depicts an actual scene from the book, one of Rockie's escapes from the bad guys. The primary bad guy is Conan from The Patriot. I had the best time bringing Conan back, and Maxwell, too.

Aftershock has one of the best last lines I think I've ever written in a book: "I love you, Bullwinkle." My other best last line is in Remembrance.

Aftershock is available for Kindle and Nook. And I'm glad to tell Nook readers that The Patriot is finally available in the Nook Store. Yay!

See this link for more on Nikola Tesla. A truly remarkable man.

Christmas in July Sale

I just posted this on the front page of my website, www.lynnmichaels.us:

Can you believe it's July already? At this rate December 25th will be here before we know it! If you can see the Holiday Season peeping over the horizon, here's something to help put you in the mood -- an early Christmas present from me to you, The Cat Before Christmas for 99-cents on Kindle and Nook.

It's never too early to stir the embers of Christmas Spirit: kindness, love, and the joy of family and friends.

The Christmas in July sale runs through July 31st.

Do I hear jingle bells?

Why am I putting The Cat Before Christmas on sale? Two reasons. One, I love this story. I want everyone to read it and love it with me. Two, the economy sucks. I don't care what they say (or spin) in Washington, it sucks. Like you, I cringe when I pull up to the gas pump, I mutter about guns and masks as I push my cart through the grocery store.

We need a break, already! I can live without T-bone steak, but books -- never. So here's a sale to help ease the strain on your book budget. We're all in this together!

The Story Behind the Story -- The Patriot

Since today is the Fourth of July it seemed the perfect time to tell you the story behind The Patriot. This is the last of the easiest-sales-I-ever-made.

The Patriot was part of the Rebels & Rogues mini-series from Temptation. The name Rebels & Rogues pretty much tells you what the editors wanted, a bad boy who was really a hero in disguise.

Here's the Reader Note I wrote for The Patriot:

Like the best emeralds, the most interesting heroes have flaws. It's their imperfections that make them alluring -- for the writer as well as the reader. These defects catch your eye and your breath, add depth and dimension to the story.

When I first envisioned The Patriot, I thought Nevin Maxwell was the hero. But when the phone rang at the beginning of chapter one, Ellison Quade answered. He talked and I listened. He told me about himself, about the Admiral and Max, but mostly he told me about Hallie. "Just get me on a plane for L.A.," he said. "I'll take care of the rest."

Which he did. Up to a point. The most important part of the story he left to Hallie. Making Quade lovable wasn't a problem -- what woman in her right mind wouldn't fall for a sexy gray-eyed Scorpio with hidden, unplumbed depths -- the challenge was making him believe he was lovable. Flaws and all. It took her a while, but Hallie convinced him, Admirably.

And irrevocably.

I really and truly thought Max was going to be the hero of The Patriot. Shows what I know. It's a rare gift when a character like Quade jumps off your fingertips, though Max is no slouch. I still receive emails and letters from readers asking if I'm ever going to write a book about Max and a book about Conan. I will, if I can come up with an idea worthy of them.

When I finished the first three chapters of The Patriot, I called my editor and read her a scene from Chapter Two. In the scene Hallie comes home from work, realizes that Quade has been in her house and rushes to check the security system. Here's the part I read to my editor over the phone:

The security system was on -- it had beeped when she'd let herself in -- but she raced to the walk-in closet in the living room to check it, anyway. It was still on. Damn smart cookie. Hallie doubled her fist on the wall beside the control panel and leaned her head against it. She was shaking.

"Tough guy, huh?" the smart cookie said from behind her.

"Tough girl." Hallie snapped her head around and saw him standing in the closet doorway. "It's hard to tell, I know, but take my word for it."

"Not that hard," he replied, leaning one shoulder against the door frame. "Your system isn't worth beans. Take my word for it."

"It's top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art."

He folded his arms and smiled at her with all the warmth of a glacier. "So am I."

When I finished reading, my editor said, "Hurry up and send me that book so I can buy it." I did and she bought it.

The Patriot is the last book I wrote on my first computer, an Epson QX-10 that cost me $2500 in 1985. Eppie worked on 2 floppy disk drives. The monitor and printer were extra, and not cheap, either, but Eppie sure beat a typewriter, even with her tiny, 8-inch monitor.

Eppie got me through 5 books. The sixth was The Patriot. One day I noticed that the air blowing out of her vents was really warm. The hard plastic case was hot to the touch. I knew that couldn't be good, but I didn't have time to take her in for repair -- the book was due in two weeks. I called my computer guy. He told me to keep Eppie cool, finish the book as fast as I could and bring her in.

I wrote the last 3 chapters in the middle of November with three box fans placed on the seats of three chairs ringed behind mine, and a small oscillating fan on the desk beside my keyboard -- all aimed at and blowing full tilt on Eppie.

I finished the book in ten days, mailed it to my editor and lugged Eppie into the shop. Her power supply was totally fried. My computer guy said I was damn lucky Eppie hadn't blown up or set the house on fire.

Inspiration can come from the strangest places. Did worrying that Eppie might burst into flames give me the idea to blow up Shark Island?

I don't know, but I still wonder.

The Story Behind the Story -- Nightwing and "Forever Knight"

This is the letter I wrote in the front of Nightwing:

Dear Reader,

If your M&M's didn't melt in your hand when Frank Langella turned his head and looked straight into the camera in Dracula, then, my dear, you and I need to talk.

If your pulse didn't race when Errol Flynn buckled his swash in Captain Blood, well then -- never mind.

These are two of my favorite secret fantasies -- vampires and pirates -- which I really enjoyed mixing in Nightwing. I also had a good time poking fun at -- and holes in -- some of the sillier myths about vampires.

There's something deliciously kinky about a tall, dark and handsome man with a widow's peak and very sharp teeth...something dangerously wicked about a tall, dark and handsome man with a gleam in his eye and a frilly white shirt open to the navel...

Turn the page and find out what. And just to be on the safe side, leave the M&M's in the fridge.

And this is the dedication:

With thanks to:
Linda Randall Wisdom, for the "Forever Knight" tapes
Connie Severson, for helping me refine my vision
Nancy Haddock, B.S., M.A, Speech Language Pathology, for double-checking my sign language
Malle Vallik, my editor, for going on vacation at just the right time
Special thanks to:
Frank Langella, Errol Flynn and Geraint Wyn Davies, for their inspiration and very strange dreams

Do you remember Forever Knight? The awesomely cool Canadian vampire series? My husband Michael and I loved it! When our cable company dropped the show after the first season, my good friend and fellow author Linda Randall Wisdom recorded the show for me. Every couple of weeks I received a package of VCR tapes, which I still have.

Here are three interesting bits of trivia about Forever Knight from Internet Movie Database:

"Originally Forever Knight was a two-hour made for TV movie pilot titled Nick Knight starring Rick Springfield as the title character." (I've never seen the pilot but I love Springfield's Jesse's Girl.)

"The title was coined by Geriant Wyn Davies" -- the star and terrific actor that portrayed the vampire main character, Nicholas Knight.

"Ranked #23 in TV Guide's list of the '25 Top Cult Shows Ever!' (May 30, 2004 issue."

I wrote in my first "The Story Behind the Story" post that Once Struck was one of my easiest sales. So was Nightwing.

Because she liked my writing (always a good thing!) my editor did her best to get me into as many of Temptation's mini-series as she could. The Patriot was part of 'Rebels & Rogues', Aftershock 'Passion's Quest', Second Sight 'Lovers & Legends', and Nightwing 'Secret Fantasies.'

When my editor told me about Secret Fantasies I couldn't think of a single thing -- I drew an absolute blank. I'd been dying (pardon the pun) to write a vampire story, but I couldn't get my idea for Nightwing to gel -- until I talked to my friend Connie Severson. Connie was an astrologer; she was also deaf in her right ear. When she asked me to tell her about my vampire character, I started with, "His birthday is in July." Connie thought I said June.

"Oh, that's easy," she replied. "Gemini's are two-faced."

Bing! The light bulb in my head clicked on. I knew exactly what to do with Raven -- split him in half.

Several weeks after our initial conversation, I called my editor and told her I had a great idea for a vampire story. She said sorry, but they'd already bought a vampire story for Secret Fantasies.

I said, "Rats!" She said, "Well, tell me the idea, anyway."

I did, and she said, "Don't go anywhere. I'll call you back in five minutes."

It was more like fifteen, but she called me back after she'd talked to the senior editor. "Write the book," she told me. "We're buying it."

And that was that. Just like Once Struck, I didn't have to write a single word to sell Nightwing.

Ooh! And guess what I just discovered? All three seasons of Forever Knight are available on Netflix!

Oh, Linda -- you may be getting your tapes back!

The Story Behind the Story -- The Cat Before Christmas and the Real Cat Before Christmas

The Cat Before Christmas is the story of Wiki, a Siamese cat that loves Christmas.

The idea hit me about two weeks before Thanksgiving. That didn't give me much time to write a novella and get it up on Kindle in time for Christmas, but I was excited about the story and decided to give it a shot.

I sketched out the plot and came up with my characters: Cary Tyler, Wiki's owner, Carrie's parents Ted and Lorraine, Carrie's friends Pam and Tina, and Ben Kendall, grandson of Charlie, the owner of the Christmas tree lot where Cary always buys her Christmas trees.

The real cat before Christmas is Smokey, the gray tabby that showed up in our driveway the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

I was not looking for a cat. The last of our three Little Queens went to kitty heaven several years ago, and I was enjoying a cat hair-free house. But there he was with his big green eyes. He was very sweet, had a soft voice, and he wasn't pushy -- he was just there. And he kept coming back over the next two weeks.

I agonized about that cat -- and the coyote that sleeps in our backyard. I talked to Michael. He said okay, let the cat in, and I did the next time Smokey wandered by. He's been here ever since.

He's a grown-up, he's been neutered, and he has all his claws. I worried about my furniture, but Smokey doesn't scratch. He comes into my office and sits by my chair until I take my feet off the footrest, which has a surface like Astroturf. That's where Smokey scratches. It only took him a couple of months to train me to do this.

In January we gave up searching lost cat ads and took Smokey to the vet. She gave him a physical, figured by his teeth that he's about 8 years old, and drew blood. Fifteen minutes later she told us that Smokey tested positive for FIV, feline immunodeficiency virus.

My heart sank. FIV is passed through saliva so likely Smokey was bitten by another cat with FIV. Just as HIV can progress to AIDS, so can FIV progress to feline AIDS. But, our vet was quick to explain, it doesn't always, and many FIV positive cats live long and healthy lives.

Michael wondered if FIV was the reason Smokey had been kicked to the curb. The vet thought he'd probably been infected while he was homeless. Her guess was the economy had put Smokey on the streets.

In multiple cat families a FIV positive cat is usually destroyed to avoid spreading the disease. We told the vet that we have no other cats and we wanted to keep Smokey.

He was underweight, just 10 pounds. He had a fungus infection in his ears, caused by his weakened immune system. The vet gave him two shots: his first rabies and the feline leukemia vaccine. She sent us home with an oral antibiotic to boost his immune system, salve for his ears and bad news for Smokey -- no more going outside because he could infect other cats.

That would be like telling me I could never eat chocolate again. Smokey was not happy about no more strolls around the neighborhood. He darted out the door a couple of times, but as soon as I yelled, "Smokey!" in my mother voice he froze until I picked him up and took him back in the house.

In February I took Smokey to the vet for his second rabies shot. The fungus infection in his ears had cleared up and he'd gained one whole pound. Our vet was thrilled that he'd responded so well to the antibiotic; she was actually grinning. So was I, but Smokey was sill not happy about being a shut-in.

Then I had a brilliant idea. Our deck sits a story off the ground and has no steps. "Why can't we let Smokey out on the deck?" I asked Michael. He replied, "He'll jump off." I said, "Only if he has a death wish. The rail is too high." Most cats won't jump if they can't see where they'll land. Michael argued that he'd jump through the gap between spindles, but we agreed to give it a try.

For a week Smokey was as good as gold. Then one morning Michael let him out at 5:30 and yep -- Smokey bailed, probably through the spindles; in the dark, no less. Michael grabbed the flashlight, went out and found him and hauled him back in the house.

The next Saturday Michael went to Home Depot. He bought two rolls of aluminum screen, which is tough enough that Smokey can't shred it with his claws, and stapled it over the spindles on the deck rail. Smokey spent an hour sniffing every inch of that screen looking for a hole. Then he gave up, flopped down in the sun and went to sleep. The photo is Smokey surveying his domain. He's the only cat in Kansas City with his own private sun porch.

What does Smokey's story have to do with The Cat Before Christmas? Everything. I wasn't looking for a cat, but Smokey found me and purred his way into my heart. Cary Tyler mowed down a fence to reclaim Wiki when he ran away. Michael built one so Smokey could go outside and be happy and safe.

Smokey picked me, but I picked Michael. My husband is the best choice I ever made.

Nightwing New Cover & Vampire Reading List

One nice thing about publishing my backlist titles on my own is this -- I can change things whenever I want. Like the cover of Nightwing. Here's the new one. What do you think?

If you like vampire romances and you're looking for something to read on your Kindle this weekend, click on the list for buy links through the Vamp Chix blog, "Hot Summer Deals on Vamp Reads".

Kimberly Van Meter designed the new cover for Nightwing. Kim is also an author, and she has a book on the list. Here are all the titles:

Drink My Blood -- Phoebe Conn
Lost -- Lori Devoti
Found -- Lori Devoti
Wicked Angels -- Michelle Hauf
Vampire Career -- Phoebe Matthews
The Reckoning -- Kimberly Van Meter
Nightwing -- Lynn Michaels

I adore vampire stories. My favorite for-laughs vampires movie is Love at First Bite. My favorite line is (I'm paraphrasing) "Don't mind the mess -- housework killed my mother."

Remember the 1979 version of Dracula, and the scene where Frank Langella as Dracula turned his head as he was climbing the wall and looked straight into the camera? My M&M's melted in my hand, right through the bag. Terrible ending; otherwise a cool movie.

Happy Father's Day -- and happy reading!

The First Daylily of Summer

Isn't she a beaut? A big, 6-inch lemon yellow bloom -- the first one to pop in my daylily bed on the west side of the house.

What's the name of this daylily? Uh, I think it's "Big Bird", but I wouldn't take any bets. A serious gardener would know the variety name. A serious gardener would have written the name in permanent ink on a plant stake and stuck it in the dirt.

Do I own plant stakes? Yes. Do I own a Sharpie? Yes. Did I intend to label this daylily? Yes, but somehow I never got to around to it.

I used to do the same thing with photographs. I always meant to label them, to write names and dates on the back, but I never got around to that, either. Drove my husband Michael crazy. Digital cameras solved the photo problem, but my flowerbeds are still a guessing game.

I have a really odd looking daylily that's budded out, but not blooming yet. All the buds are on one central stalk. I don't recall ever seeing a daylily like this, and of course, I didn't label it when I planted it.

I'll post a photo when it blooms. Maybe one of you can tell me the name. If so I promise I'll dig out my plant stakes and my Sharpie.

Once Struck -- The Story Behind the Story

My agent called me in the spring of 1995 and asked if I'd like to write a novella for a summer storm anthology being put together by St. Martin's Press for publication in 1996. She'd attended a party with an SMP editor and talked up my books. I said sure, and within a few weeks I received the contract.

Once Struck was the easiest sale I've ever made. I didn't have to type a single word. My agent made this sale, which shows you the advantage of having an agent with good connections.

My agent told me to write a contemporary story of about 100 pages with a rural American background and a summer storm as the climax of the plot. I said, "Can do" and started thinking.

My initial idea was tractors, maybe a tractor race might be fun. I was playing around with that when my agent called and said oops, she'd misunderstood. The editor wanted a historical novella, not a contemporary.

"No problem," I said, though I wondered how many adult beverages were consumed at that party. Then I sighed, scratched the tractor race and headed for the Agricultural Hall of Fame in Bonner Springs, Kansas.

This is a fascinating place. Room after room of wonderful exhibits and antique farm equipment. I saw a grain cradle -- a long-handled, long-fingered scythe -- like the one Peach MaCauley used to harvest her wheat.

That's a cradle in the photo. Weird looking thing, isn't it? My thanks to Craig at Stoney Acres Farm in Linden, Michigan for permission to use this photo from his website. If you'd like to see some of the other things Peach uses in the story, check out the Stoney Acres site.

Field trip over, I headed home and started writing. My agent called and asked what kind of a storm I planned to use in the story; the editor wanted to know. I told her a tornado. She said thanks and hung up. Then she called back and told me I'd have to come up with a different storm because one of the other authors in the anthology had a tornado in her story. I sighed again, but said, "Okay, make it a hailstorm."

Then I ripped up what I had and started over for the third time . In case you missed my first post, here's the final version of Once Struck:

Nebraska, 1973

Alone in the world...

Peach MaCauley has only 40 acres of wheat standing between her and becoming a poor relation. On the eve of the harvest a storm threatens her crop -- and her independence. Only one man steps forward to help her...one man she's not sure she should trust.

Kit Taggart is no longer the dirt-poor boy with soulful brown eyes who kissed her behind the church at the Fourth of July Social. now he's a handsome, hard-edged ex-soldier. His price for saving Peach and her crop is one night with her -- all night, from dusk to dawn.

That was the last phone call from my agent, thank God. All the starts and stops had put me way behind on my deadline. I wasn't the only one frustrated by all the "Oops" phone calls -- so were Peach and Kit. Once I sat down to write, they jumped to life and took over. I was typing as fast as I could to keep up with them, until I finished Chapter 7.

I woke up the next morning so sick I could barely stand. I was dizzy, had a horrible cough and my back was killing me. The day before I was fine, right as rain. Michael came home from work at noon and took me to the doctor. I had pneumonia, and Once Struck was due in 10 days.

My agent and the editor said don't worry, get better and then finish the book. I slept for 5 days straight, hooked up the laptop and finished Once Struck in a cough syrup-induced haze. I only missed my deadline by 2 weeks. Not bad for typing two paragraphs and coughing my head off, typing two more and coughing my head off until I finished the story.

I was a little nervous about those last 3 chapter, but I was pretty happy once I'd read them in the page proofs. So happy I wondered if maybe I should write everything under the influence of cough syrup.

Murphy's Law says if anything can go wrong it will. Here's the writer's version of Murphy's Law: If anything can wrong it will -- a week before your deadline.

Where in the World Was Lynn?

I haven't been here, on Facebook, Twitter or anyplace else for a while. So where have I been?

I'd love to tell you cruising the Caribbean, but the truth is that since the first of April I've been at the chiropractor 3 times a week. I have 4 pinched nerves in my back. Possibly more. My lumbar spine is so smashed together that neither my chiropractor nor the radiologist that read my x-rays can tell how many for sure.

I'd also love to tell you I did this bungee jumping or playing polo, but no -- I fell down our front steps in January while I was shoveling snow. Eight-inches of white stuff that hid 2-inches of ice underneath -- which of course I didn't see until I'd cleared the snow.

I was happily shoveling my way down the steps with the little blue plastic shovel that our grandson Zachery used when he was five. About the time I decided that I should probably be shoveling UP rather than DOWN, I realized I was standing on solid ice.

A half-second later my husband Michael, who was shoveling the drive with a really big shovel that looks like it belongs on the front end of a snowplow hollered at me, "Get off those steps!"

The power of suggestion was all it took. My feet shot out from under me and I bounced down five ice-crusted concrete steps on my tailbone. When I landed at the bottom, I jumped to my feet to make sure Michael hadn't seen my Three Stooges descent.

He hadn't, thank God; his back was turned.

Astonishingly, I could move, and I wasn't in screaming agony so I kept shoveling as far up the flight as I could without climbing the steps until Michael finished the drive and took over.

The possibility that I'd pinched 4 nerves and that was why my back didn't hurt, never occurred to me. That is a special kind of stupid. I should have known better.

When I was 14 I went sideways off a horse (I wasn't playing polo then, either) knocked myself cold and crushed a disc between my shoulder blades.

Then I grew up and became a writer. Lots of writers have back problems because we sit all day. The last time my back went kaflooie I was racing to finish Honeymoon Suite. I could do anything but sit. I ended up at a sports medicine doctor.

Post MRI he diagnosed the problem as occupational stress -- sitting on my fanny at a computer for 20-plus years. He told me that fixed keyboard trays should be banned because they keep you in the same position all day long. He recommended voice recognition software and a really good chair.

I bought the chair that you see in the photo. It's unoccupied because I haven't been in it. The arms adjust up and down or forward and back. The seat goes up and down, too.

The platform on the front of my desk is an incremental keyboard tray. This is its highest position. I can stand and type at this height, when I can stand; I'll get to that in a minute. I can also lower it nearly to the floor. It adjusts incrementally, which means I can move it an inch or two or just a hair. That's all it takes to change my position.That's a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic keyboard.

The chair and the incremental keyboard tray got me through Honeymoon Suite, but they were no help this time.

The pain started in my knees in March. Silly me, I thought the problem was my knees. I loaded up on MSM with Glucosamine, but within a week I could barely stand, let alone walk. The dinner plate size bruise on the left side of my fanny had faded, but my back still didn't hurt. I went to the chiropractor anyway on April third, he took x-rays, showed me where the nerves were likely pinched, and I've been on his table 3-times a week ever since.

On Tuesday I posted about the release of Once Struck. That's the first day I've been able to sit in my really good chair for more than 10 minutes. Until then the most comfortable position for me was lying down or leaning against a wall or the kitchen counters. I could sit on the couch for 20 minutes, the recliner for 5, a kitchen chair for maybe 10. I was like Goldilocks; too hard, too soft.

I'm back now, but I'm taking it slow, not overdoing it. Look for my new weekly blog series "The Story Behind the Story" beginning on Monday, June 13.

What's the lesson I learned from this experience? Listen to the guy with the big shovel.

Just In Time For Summer

Here's Once Struck, the Western historical novella I wrote for the anthology Unchained Lightning published by St. Martin's press.

Since I never received a royalty statement, I'm guessing maybe four people on the planet bought the book. Here's your chance to be the fifth!

From the original cover: "Summer is nature's most tempestuous time for storms...and stormy hearts." Each story in the anthology revolved around a storm.

Here's the blurb for Once Struck:

Nebraska, 1873

Alone in the world...

Peach MaCauley has only 40 acres of wheat standing between her and becoming a poor relation. On the eve of the harvest a storm threatens her crop -- and her independence. Only one man steps forward to help her...one man she's not sure she should trust.

Kit Taggart is no longer the dirt-poor boy with soulful brown eyes who kissed her behind the church at the Fourth of July Social. Now he's a handsome, hard-edged ex-soldier. His price for saving Peach and her crop is one night with her...all night, from dusk to dawn.

If she accepts, she'll be ruined. If she declines, she'll be destitute. But what choice does she have?

Once Struck is now available for $1.99 on Kindle and Nook.

On Monday, June 13, I'm launching a weekly blog series, "The Story Behind the Story" with a piece on how I came to write Once Struck. There's a story behind every story an author writes.

Most of the time I'm ripping my hair out trying to think of things to blog about, so this series will give me 18 weeks worth of material. Yippee!

Mother's Day Sale -- Books for 99 Cents!

One of my favorite sites, Daily Cheap Reads, is running a Mother's Day Special -- featuring Kindle Books for 99 cents!

Here's a teaser from the site:

"Beach reading, vacation, evenings on the patio...with our Kindles. To ensure you have plenty of great reading material, we are going to post 99 cent books only starting Sunday, May 8 at 10:00 pm. We have so many books there will be a post at the top of every hour for at least 48 hours -- maybe longer as the book list continues to grow."

I'm participating in the special by offering The Patriot for 99 cents. Amazon has already lowered the price so hurry on over and grab a copy. The Patriot will be on sale until Friday, May 13th.

Happy Reading and Happy Mother's Day!

No Fooling!

An appropriate title for April first, don't you think?

In the spirit of the day here's a headline that cracked me up:

"SFWA SUES INDIVIDUALS, CORPORATIONS, NATIONS AND GOD FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT"

SFWA is the Science Fiction Writers of America. Read the entire spoof here. It's hilarious.

In other, this is not a joke news, on Monday I did an interview with David Wisehart at his Kindle Author Blog. This is a great blog, and great place to keep up with new, cool books available on Kindle.

Here's a fun find I made on the Internet:

The Duke's Downfall, the Regency I originally wrote for Fawcett as Jane Lynson is #604 on the list of "1001 Best Romance Novels" voted by Readers of Romantic Time Magazine. I was tickled pink to discover this.

Thanks to Kindle readers The Duke's Downfall and its prequel, Captain Rakehell, are still in the Top 50 of the Kindle Bestsellers List in Regency Romance.

Romance readers rock. No fooling!

Spring Has Sprung -- Pass the Puffs

The grass is greening, the trees are budding, and I'm sneezing my head off. That's the box of Puffs that sits on my desk.

I still blame Kansas for this. See my post A Funny Thing Happened for why I blame the Sunflower State for my screwed up sinuses.

Last year spring came late, but it hit like a thunderbolt. Temperatures in the high 70's and astronomical pollen counts. I opened the windows and ended up with a yellow dining room table; that's how much pollen was in the air.

My summer was one long misery of sinus infection after sinus infection. Actually, I think it was just one infection that never cleared up, but what do I know? I'm only a writer.

In August I gave up and went to see the ENT doctor who saved me after my disastrous run-in with Kansas.

He told me I have a deviated septum, a crooked sinus passage on the right side. That was part of the problem. He also suspected that I'd developed an allergy to something. He prescribed a sinus spray that finally gave me relief. When the first hard freeze killed everything outside my symptoms vanished, almost as quickly as flipping a light switch.

I could breathe and I was happy -- until mid-February of this year when the trees started to wake up and my symptoms returned. Stuffy nose and cough due to post-nasal drip. Remember the TV commercial with the big, sniffling red-tipped nose walking around on little stick legs? That was me.

I learned my lesson last year so I went straight to the ENT doctor. He put me on a 6-day course of steroids to calm the symptoms and suggested 10-mg. Zyrtec.

Knowing zip about allergy medications, I took myself to our neighborhood pharmacy. I bought a package of 10-mg. Zyrtec-D. The clerk had to scan my driver's license and I had to sign a statement on the electronic pad promising that I wouldn't abuse the product. I said to the clerk, "Like this is going to stop anybody who wants to make meth."

Anyway. The Zyrtec-D dried up my nose, my eyes, my skin, my throat and my mouth. I drank tons of water plus two 20-ounce bottles of Gatorade's low cal G-2 every day and still didn't have enough saliva to swallow. I tried Allergra next, but it upset my stomach.

This was not going well.

At the grocery store a couple days later I discovered 10-mg. over the counter Zyrtec, sans the decongestant, and bought that without fear of being arrested for running a meth lab in the basement. I took one before I went to bed that night and fell into a 13-hour coma.

When the fog lifted -- as John Denver used to say, "Take a trip and never leave the farm" -- I examined the tablets and saw that they're scored, which means it's okay to cut them in half.

I gave myself a head slap and cut the tabs in two. That's a 5-mg. dose instead of 10. I take half at night, the other half after lunch, and now I can stay awake to write. Yes, I'm writing a new book. Two, actually. I'll tell you about them later. (That's what writers call foreshadowing.)

To my fellow allergy sufferers: If we pool our funds maybe we can buy a few shares of stock in Proctor & Gamble, the company that manufactures Puffs. I believe it's in our best interests to keep these folks in business.

Daily Cheap Reads

I love this site. If you own a Kindle, you will, too.

Here's a snippet of their mission statement:

"Every day, we list cheap reads available for your Kindle e-reader through Amazon. We guarantee no book will ever be priced over $5. At least once a day we post a SuperCheap read for less than $2. We also post FREE books as soon as they become available. The only thing better than cheap is free."

This month Daily Cheap Reads is featuring backlist titles that are available on Kindle. Tomorrow, Monday February 7, Daily Cheap Reads is giving three of my books a mention in their 10 AM post. Click on the link to see which three.

Okay. End of shameless plug -- now back to Daily Cheap Reads.

This is the best site I've found for discovering books that I'd likely miss if I were surfing Amazon on my own. I mean, really, who has that kind of time? I don't know where the good folks at Daily Cheap Reads find the time, but I'm glad and grateful that they do.

The site is devoted solely to Kindle books. It's attractive, easy to read, straightforward and a breeze to navigate.

Follow the link above and bookmark Daily Cheap Reads. You can also follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

You'll be glad you did. I am.

A Funny Thing Happened

One of the nicest things I get to do as a published author is travel. Mostly to writers conferences where I get to see my writer friends.

The Boston Romance Writers of America conference was just weird. The hotel was very old, and I swear it was haunted. There were two fire alarms late at night. During the second one I smelled smoke. Or was it sulfur?

I flew to Denver for another RWA Conference, but drove home to Kansas City with a friend. An eight-hour, seven hundred and fifty mile drive across Kansas in July.

First, it was hotter than blazes. Second, my sinuses went nuts. We were rained on, and I mean rained. I kept looking for Noah and the Ark. Instead I saw a tornado drawing a bead on I-70. Thankfully, it dissipated. The rain ended, we were back in the inferno, it rained again, then dumped us back into the blast furnace.

Last we drove through a brush fire. By the time we got home I couldn't breathe or hear. When I told my husband Michael about the trip he said, "What? No plague or pestilence?"

I've had trouble with my sinuses and my right ear ever since. I blame Kansas. Don't drive to Denver. Fly, both ways. Trust me.

The most fun RWA conference I attended was in Hawaii in 1995. My fourth Harlequin Temptation, Aftershock, was nominated for a RITA, the Oscar of romance writing. I wanted to be there in case I won. I didn't, but I had a wonderful time in Hawaii.

On the shuttle bus from the airport to the hotel, I saw Diamond Head. The driver said it was open to the public and you could climb all the way to the top. That's all I needed to hear. I live in Missouri. When would I ever get another chance to climb a volcano?

My friend and fellow author Linda Randall Wisdom, is as nuts as I am. She agreed to go with me. What's left of the cone in only 761 feet high. Piece of cake, we figured. That's Linda and I in the photo on the left.

We went on the bus early one morning, got off at the wrong stop and ended up walking halfway to Diamond Head. All uphill. We finally got there and followed the road that's cut through the side of the mountain into the crater, which is so huge it looks like another country. That should have been our first clue.

Initially, the hike wasn't bad. The path was nice and wide and paved, but the higher we climbed, the narrower and rockier the path became, and the iron railing enclosing it kept getting taller. On our of our stops to breathe and drink water, we saw a sign warning tourists not to leave the trail. Several had in the past year and died. That gave us pause, but we were determined. And stupid. Did I mention that?

On we climbed, huffing and puffing, our calf muscles burning and our knees turning to Jell-O. We were almost there, almost to the summit we thought, when we came to The Stairway to Ben-Gay. So steep we couldn't see the breaks between the steps, let alone the top.

"We can do this," Linda said, hooking her arm through mine. "Just pretend there's a shoe sale up there."

What a pal. And that's how we made it. All the way up those God-awful stairs, through the tunnel beyond and up a flight of spiral iron steps to the top of Diamond Head. That's me in the photo on the right, trying to look nonchalant while leaning on the rail to keep from falling on my face with exhaustion.

From that vantage point, we realized how close we were to the stinking volcano from our hotel. Close enough to spit and hit it, if only we'd followed the beach. We did on the way back. Took off our shoes and strolled back to the hotel along the sand in less than half the time it took us to get there on the bus. I brought home a t-shirt that says on the front: I CLIMBED DIAMOND HEAD AND LIVED.

On the back it says: After 299 Steps, Dark Tunnel, Spiral Staicase (Yes, it's misspelled. Misspellings haunt me) No Lights, No Water, You Better Believe...I EARNED THIS T-SHIRT.

I still have the shirt, and I still wear it proudly. I get a lot of comments in the grocery store.