The Bliss of a Breakthrough! with Roxanne St. Claire

Please join me in welcoming bestselling author, Roxanne St. Claire! Not only is she a bestselling, incredibly prolific, RITA winning author of dozens of hot books, she’s also a super nice. (Which is a good thing ‘cause otherwise I’d have to hate her a little. She’s that good.) Her Bullet Catcher series is Romantic Suspense at it’s best – great plots, great suspense, HAWT heroes. (Swoon!) So, take it away Roxanne…


What an honor and pleasure to be at one of my very favorite blogs. Thank you, Gemma, for the invitation to stop by – especially during this special week. It’s “Release Week” for me – NOW YOU DIE, the latest in my Bullet Catcher series, hit stores on Tuesday and that means I wallow in a sea of emotions. Anticipation, excitement, worry, terror, angst (sooooo much), pride (even more), and whatever the emotion is that drives us to check amazon numbers on an hourly (okay, minutely) basis.

The best distractions during this mood maelstrom are blogging, vacationing, or writing. Being an overachiever, I am happily doing all three! I’m at the beach for a few days, hard at work on my next book, and popping around the blogosphere to chat about writing. The beach is gorgeous (but I live in Florida, so there’s a hurricane in the distance that scares me). Guest blogging and commenting is one of my favorite pastimes, so expect me to pop in often today. But the activity that takes me away like a Calgon bath is writing. Best of all, writing after a “breakthrough.” These are the happiest writing days, and I’m thrilled to tell you, I’ve recently had one. All the writers out there know the joy of that instant when some knotted up plot twist or unclear character trait or sticky story element is suddenly, inexplicably, perfectly resolved. Even the tiniest breakthrough can be a source of major joy but when we have one that solves the supersized story problems, it’s just a bunch of bliss.

It’s fun to watch a writer the moment she has the breakthrough. She brightens, blinks, looks around at no one (or perhaps her husband who is earnestly discussing how the Yankees suck this year) and she will say, “Oh! That’s it! If the cell phone is programmed with a certain song in the opening scene, then when she hears it playing she’ll know that he’s the villain! Thank you, honey, for helping me figure that out.” And he just looks at her, and smiles, long resigned to the fact that to be a sounding board of great value, all you have to do is be in the same room with a writer, or talk about the Yankees.

I had a breakthrough this week. Oddly enough, it came from a source designed to provide that very service, but often offers more information than inspiration – the RWR, the magazine published by the Romance Writers of America. I admit, with some embarrassment and guilt, that I haven’t been reading the RWR regularly of late. A shortage of time, a lack of interest, a sense that I’ve “read all that.” But shame on me because there it was, in the glossy pages of our corporate mag – the answer to my manuscript’s problems.

I had taken the RWR to bed because, well, I wanted something to put me to sleep. (Sorry RWR editor. My bad! Read on.) I enjoyed the first article on writer’s depression because it provided a different spin on the subject, and one that made sense. More awake than asleep (defeating the very purpose of my reading material), I started an article on theme. Theme? This will be a yawner, right? Apparently not because this well written essay by Liz Lounsbury, titled “Utilizing Your Theme to Add Depth to Your Stories,” was not the Ambien on the Page I’d hoped to take. One sentence in particular made me think, and think hard. Ms. Lounsbury suggests that the best way to show a book’s theme is to tie it to the character’s arc. Do I do that in every book? I considered the last few. Yes, I do. I really do. Am I doing that in the current book?

A few pangs of gut-level discomfort jabbed at me, the same ones that had been making unwanted appearances for the last month or so. The article forced me to think through some character issues, keeping me awake late into the night until finally, after much soul-searching and idea-generating, the answer came to me. And, Lordy, it was a Capital B Breakthrough. I actually threw off the covers, tiptoed back into my office, and wrote notes for half an hour, fueled by that lovely urgency of finally knowing exactly what I wanted to do with the book. And since that night, the book’s been flying.

My blog point, and I do have one, is not about my particular lightbulb moment, but how critical they are to the process of writing. If we listen to the inner voice, the muse, the gut – who or whatever gives a writer the sense that all is right (or not) with the book – the breakthrough will happen. And it may come from an obvious source (a well written article on craft) or a surprise (an unsuspecting Yankee fan).

So tell me about your breakthroughs! Even if you’re not a writer – you have that moment of “clarity” when the solution to a problem presents itself. How did they happen – by chance or by force? Here’s a new twist on an age-old question: where do you get your breakthroughs?

One commenter will win a copy of FIRST YOU RUN, the opening book in this year’s Bullet Catcher trilogy. And I’ll pop in to answer any questions or talk about my new release, NOW YOU DIE – a hot romantic suspense featuring a smart-ass bodyguard by the name of Jack Culver and Bullet Catcher boss, Lucy Sharpe. There were multiple breakthroughs involved in that one, I promise!

Xoxo
Rocki
www.roxannestclaire.com