Moving Forward, Sort Of by Jana Richards

As I write this, I’m coughing all over my keyboard. I’ve been struck down by a nasty bacterial infection and my brain has pretty much turned to pudding, so I’ll keep my post short and sweet. When I finish writing this, I think I’ll take a nap. Even though I have a lot of things to do, like writing my current work-in-progress, I need to take care of myself so I can live to write another day. 

I’ve been busy all through January and the first half of February (until this plague hit me). A project I just completed was the launching of my new website. I’d been thinking for some time that it would be nice to give my website a refreshed look, or perhaps create an entirely new site, but it hadn’t been a top priority. Until suddenly it was. Last year my web mistress let me know that she was retiring and would not be available to update the website any longer. After procrastinating a bit while I launched a new book last fall, I started looking around at different options.

I decided I wanted the ability to update the site myself. Yes, I am a control freak. There are a lot of possibilities for websites out there, but not all of them were a good fit for me. One was way too expensive, and another was way too difficult for me to figure out. I checked out several build-your-own sites that were great, but I am terrible at design, even if I’m using a template. Apparently, I wasn’t born with the design gene. After asking several writers what they use for their websites, I finally landed on PottertonCreative.com. Melinda at Potterton Creative designed a new website for me and also handled the heavy lifting technically to get things up and running. I appreciate having someone I can go to for support. My site’s going to be on the Wix platform, so I’ll be able to update it myself. Like Goldilocks, I found the website that was just right. Check out my new site at https://www.janarichards.com 

Like I said, I’ve also been writing. I’m working on a new time-travel romance series I call Twice in Lifetime, that will eventually be three books. Here’s the premise of the series: To earn his wings and become a citizen of Heaven, an apprentice angel will give three mortals a second chance at love. Along the way, the apprentice learns truths about himself and the mortal life he left behind. 

I’ll leave you with an excerpt from book 1 that I’m tentatively calling “We’ll Meet Again”. In this scene, Nathan, the apprentice angel, wakes up alone in a strange room after having a car accident:

Nathan carefully got to his feet and circled the strange room, which was about the size of a small bedroom, maybe ten feet by ten feet. A white wooden table and two matching chairs sat in the middle of the room. An old-fashioned television in a mahogany cabinet occupied one corner. A clock hung on the wall above the TV, and a desk calendar, the kind with pages that flipped over, sat on top of the TV. He noted that the date showing was December 5—the day of the gala.

The day Sloane said goodbye.

How did he get here? He had no conscious memory of traveling to this place. The last thing he remembered was being in his car. There’d been a crash, but he was uninjured and felt no pain. Was he in a hospital? If he was, it was the strangest hospital he’d ever seen.

A ripple of unease slid down his spine. He didn’t care what this place was. He was getting the hell out.

He opened the door and looked out onto a beautiful meadow filled with flowers of every color and size, their lovely heads waving in the gentle breeze like a multi-colored flag. How were the flowers possible? It was December in Canada. Nathan shook his head in disbelief as fluffy white clouds meandered across an impossibly blue sky. In the distance, on the crest of a hill, a castle sparkled in the sunshine.

Longing filled him. He wanted to run through that wonderful meadow and reach the shining castle. He didn’t know why or how, but he knew in that place there’d be no trouble, no grief, no fear. He’d be happy there. Safe.

As he attempted to cross the threshold, his right foot and his nose crashed painfully into something immovable and solid, even though he could see nothing in his way. He tried again, reaching out his hand. It encountered the same hard wall, some sort of invisible barrier. What was it? No matter how hard he pushed or pounded his fists against it, the invisible wall stood between him and the meadow. He shook his head in disgust. The story of his life. True happiness had always been out of his reach.

He sat on one of chairs and stared out the open door to the meadow beyond. What happened now? Where was everybody? If this room was part of a hospital, where was the rest of it? It should be filled with doctors and nurses and sick people. Where were they?

In the distance, he saw someone amble across the meadow. The flowers leaned away from the man, as if making room for him to pass. As if the flowers were the sea and the man was Moses parting the waves.

Nathan shook his head. I’ve got to be losing it.

I hope you enjoyed the snippet. And now I’m going to have a nap!