Looking Out The Window: Jennifer Uhlarik Talks About Writing, Her Love Of Westerns and Her New Book, Sand Creek Serenade. Gives Away an E-book.

A Warm Welcome to Jennifer Uhlarik

Jennifer will give away an eBook of Sand Creek Serenade. To enter to win leave a comment and an email address below.

Hi Jennifer, tell us a little about yourself.

Let’s see. I am a wife to a retired cop, with a step-son, a son, and a grandson. (I’m surrounded by boys—and I love it!) My husband and I are empty-nesters for the most part, as my step-son lives on his own, and my son is in college. The college kiddo stays with us on school breaks and summers, but otherwise, it’s just the two of us.

I love to travel, though I don’t get to do big trips nearly often enough. Instead, we do short weekend getaways a couple of times a year within driving distance of home—with a larger, more expensive/longer distance trip every few years. When we do get away, we like to explore Civil War battlefields, quaint towns, art and history museums, old homes, and the like. I love to explore those historic places and sites in hopes that someday, I can use them in a story somewhere.

As far as the “working” side of life, not only am I an author, but I’m also the managing editor of "Trailblazer Western Fiction." So my days are full of writing my own stories, then punctuated with helping other western authors realize their dreams of seeing their stories in print. It’s exciting—and I love what I get to do for a career.

Lots of writers loved to read as children. How about you? If so, what did you read?

 Absolutely! My mother started reading to me probably before I breached the womb, so I had a deep love of books and stories from very early on! My first memories were loving books about animals—particularly cats. Then the focus shifted to horse books. I devoured the Black Stallion series, then looked for any book I could find with a horse on the cover. Misty of Chincoteague. Black Beauty. You get the idea. It was as I began to outgrow those children’s and young adult books that I discovered western novels (purely by accident). I’d finished my latest book, needed something to take to school with me, and found a Louis L’Amour western on my oldest brother’s bookshelf. It was then I discovered that the horses were great, but the guys on the horses were even better! LOL After that point, I devoured westerns, and that’s what “stuck” with me into adulthood.

I have wonderful memories of my mother reading to me too. So, why do you write? 

Because the voices in my head tell me to! Haha. No, seriously…I believe God wired me to write. It is my calling, and I’ve done it since my earliest days. I have pictures of myself as a very young toddler—still in diapers—sitting at our dining room table, scribbling away on a pad of paper. I wrote my first “stories” around age four or five, when I should have been asleep late at night—pictorial stories of earthworms and other creatures with lines of chicken scratch to “tell” what was happening in the drawings. I always loved to make up elaborate stories and play pretend with my friends, but when such behaviors were no longer cool, I learned that I could write down all my pretending on paper and people would call it a story. I’ve never known a time when I wasn’t scribbling my thoughts and ideas, and I’m happiest when I’m in writing mode.

Tell us about your latest book.

Sand Creek Serenade is a historical romance set in 1864 Colorado Territory. It is the romance between a white female doctor and a half-Cheyenne brave. But beyond the romance, this story also depicts a terrible piece of American history—the Sand Creek Massacre, where the frontier army, led by Col. John Chivington, marched on a sleeping village of Cheyenne and Arapaho women, children, and elderly, and opened fire, even after promising a peace treaty with these very people. While the historical context is a heavy topic, I’ve attempted to infuse hope and goodness into it through the events of the story.

What inspired you to write this particular book?

That is a bit of an odd story. When Sadie and Five Kills’ story first started to take shape, I was supposed to be plotting a novella for a collection with the theme of “women doing male-dominated jobs.” Thus, my heroine was a doctor at a time in history when very few women practiced medicine in any formal setting. But I needed some kind of an event that would allow her a big platform to use her medical skills. It was late one evening when I stumbled on a brief mention of the Sand Creek Massacre and thought it would make the perfect setting. Immediately, the hero, Five Kills, began to take shape in my mind. But in the days after that, I dug further into the research of the Sand Creek Massacre and realized just how much  history there was to cover. It was not the topic for a novella! And I wondered if it was even a good topic for a novel. But the story called to me, and after praying through the idea, I knew it must be written. So—Sand Creek Serenade was born.

Tell us what you love about it.

From the time I was a young child, I have had a love for the Native American cultures. Getting to research and study what life might have been like among the Cheyenne and Arapaho was such a fascinating endeavor for me, and I hope that comes through in the story. I have also long had a love of medical details. I was the strange kid who would spend her free time during high school reading her mother’s nursing textbooks and trying to digest the concepts and procedures. (Okay, in case you haven’t figured it out yet—YES, I’m a major nerd! LOL) I loved all the research that I had to do to put this story together in a believable way, while still making it a compelling romance.

What do you hope readers will tell others about it?

My greatest hope is that readers will find hope, just as the characters do. Sadie and Five Kills experience racism, betrayal, death, hatred—and they overcome all those things to find love. Both romantic love, but more importantly, God’s love. My biggest desire is that anyone reading Sand Creek Serenade will also find hope through the love of family, friends, and God in whatever difficulties they may be facing.

What is your writing schedule and where do you write? 

I do my best writing from mid-afternoon—usually 2 or 3 pm—until late night, but I don’t always get to my writing as early in the afternoon as I’d like. Sometimes, it’s mid-evening before I can plow through enough other responsibilities to settle down and work on a story. When I am able to settle in and write, I work out of the front bedroom of our 4-bedroom home. It’s a space about 12’x10’ with two windows facing the front yard. My small desk is centered between the two windows, and along the opposing wall behind me sits a big, comfortable futon. To my right are two large bookcases with my many research books close at hand. And the most important thing—a dog bed sits in the corner nearby. My faithful sidekick, Gracie (who was the inspiration for Hotame in Sand Creek Serenade), takes great pride in “helping” me write. Every time she sees me grab my laptop and head toward the writing room, she leaps up and races ahead of me to take her station in the corner and lend her quiet support. I’ve come to rely on it!

Do you have to juggle writing with a job, family responsibilities or other obligations?

Yes. As I mentioned above, I am not only an author, but also the managing editor of Trailblazer Western Fiction.

How do you balance it?

It’s a learning process! I haven’t been a managing editor for very long yet, so I’ve still got a long way to go to feel like I’ve got my job firmly in hand, but I’m learning to set specific days of the week to work on Trailblazer tasks, set specific word-count goals per day for my writing, and do as many of the marketing tasks for my own writing or Trailblazer titles (blog posts, creating internet memes, and the like) well ahead of time. And…I keep lists of outstanding tasks that have to be done so I don’t lose track of the things I’ve committed to do.

Are you a plotter or a pantzer?

I used to be strictly a pantser! The first novel I attempted to write as an adult was one I started as a college project for a fiction-writing class. I worked on that across all four years of college, then another six years once I’d graduated. It went through so many drafts and versions because I didn’t have a firm idea of where I was going when I started it. Once the first contract rolled in, I had to learn to plot a story ahead of writing it—at least a bare-bones version of a plot—and then stick as closely to it as I could. I used to think that plotting a story would rob me of the fun of discovering the plot. Now I realize how absolutely freeing it is to have a structure to follow—and no, it really does not kill the fun of discovering the story.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

I sure do! The writing business rarely happens fast. For most aspiring writers, it takes years to study and learn, to hone your craft, to develop your distinct author’s voice, and eventually get published. Too many today want to whip out a first draft, get their best friend’s stamp of approval that this is a story to rival the classic authors down through the ages, and so they rush out to self-publish their new gem. My advice is: Don’t rush the process! Study lots of different craft books. Get into a good critique group where people will help you improve your stories. When possible, attend writing conferences or seminars to learn more techniques. Listen to the advice given you with an open mind, then implement it. If you do the hard work early on—and keep pressing even when it feels like you’ve been at it forever—the doors will open, and you’ll have a wonderful and fulfilling career in the end.

What would you be doing if you weren’t writing?

Something creative. I enjoy paper quilling, sewing, crafts. I used to knit and crochet in my teen years, and I’ve thought it might be fun to resurrect those skills. I’ve taken a class or two on jewelry-making from local stores. If I weren’t writing, I’d HAVE to get the creative juices flowing on some other way—or I’d be miserable!

More About Sand Creek Serenade

Dr. Sadie Hoppner is no stranger to adversity. She’s fought to be taken seriously since childhood, when her father began training her in the healing arts. Finding acceptance and respect proves especially difficult at Fort Lyon, where she’s come to practice medicine under her brother’s watchful eye.

Cheyenne brave Five Kills wouldn’t knowingly jeopardize the peace treaty recently negotiated between his people and the Army. But a chance encounter with the female doctor ignites memories of his upbringing among the whites. Too intrigued to stay away, tension erupts with the soldiers, and Five Kills is injured.

As he recuperates under the tender care of the pretty healer, an unlikely bond forms. However, their fledgling love is put to the test when each realizes that a much greater danger awaits—a danger they are wholly unable to stop, and one which neither may survive.

Buy here

Bio

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has finaled and won in numerous writing competitions, and been on the ECPA best-seller list numerous times. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers and lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, college-aged son, and four fur children.

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