What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date you completely finished the piece of fiction: The Drop is my tenth novel. It takes me about six months to write the finished draft that I send to my agent. She’s a former editor at a NY publishing house, and she’ll go through it, sometimes with her assistants, and usually suggest changes or enhancements. I do revisions based on comments received, which takes another month or so. I typically publish two books a year, but via different publishers. The publisher for The Drop has a two-year timeline from contract to issue, so this book was actually written three years ago.
Click on the below link (John Anthony Miller) to purchase THE DROP from TouchPoint Press.
Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work? I have a home office, the walls covered with bookshelves with a large desk in the center of the room. This is where I do my writing.
What were your writing habits while writing this work – did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? I write throughout the day, usually get started about 6 am, and write directly on my laptop – usually through six or seven revisions before the book is ready for my agent to send to publishers. I drink coffee or tea and prefer quiet, so I don’t listen to music or have any other distractions.
EXCERPT – first three pages of the novel from final draft
Chapter 1
July 26, 1958 at 07:11 a.m.
Six miles east of Havana, Cuba
The concrete walls were twenty feet high, broad at the bottom but slim at the top and capped by barbed wire. Towers sprouted from each corner, manned by guards with machine-guns who watched the barren ground that stretched from the walls to the trees in the distance. The fortress was imposing. It would discourage an enemy, defeat an attacker, deter the most formidable foe – if that was its purpose. But it wasn’t designed to keep people out. It was built to keep them in.
They were political prisoners. Those brave enough to disagree, offer opposing views, challenge conventional wisdom. If nothing else, they expressed ideas that deserved to be heard. But they paid a price for daring to dream. Many lost their lives behind the massive walls of one of the world’s most notorious prisons. Many more lost their minds.
Two steel doors admitted vehicles needed to support a prison population that counted so many thousand souls. A single-story office building with narrow windows sat beside the doors, an island of freedom in a continent of convicts, a link to a world those inside had forgotten. And through this office, on very rare occasions, a prisoner walked out, having paid their debt to society. But they were never the same as when they walked in. Their days were too horrendous; their minds too scarred.
Ariana Rojas sat in the driver’s seat of her 1955 black Ford, waiting for a man to emerge. She was attractive – an olive complexion, wavy black hair and dark eyes. Slender and graceful, poised and articulate, she was an intellectual from a once-wealthy family.
Not yet thirty, she often claimed her devotion to the revolution, driven by her hatred for Fulgencio Batista, a brutal dictator who destroyed her family. Although born to privilege she barely survived, working as a maid at the Paradise Hotel, living in a third-floor apartment in a century-old building. The luxuries in life she had once enjoyed had vanished, the memories surreal, the dream a nightmare.
She looked at her watch, waiting. The sun rose, promising another hot day. A gentle breeze blew in from the ocean, four miles north, and a kaleidoscope of palm trees, orchids and lilies sprouted from the edge of the barren strip that circled the prison walls. She shivered, even in the heat, knowing that the man she was about to meet might remotely resemble the one she had left a year before.
The door to the office opened and he stepped out, lean and hard, ruggedly handsome. A scraggly beard sprawled across his face; his dark eyes alive with conviction. His gray suit was wrinkled, ill-fitting, not worn since he arrived. An attorney before imprisonment, he was a shadow of the man who wore it before, the suit symbolizing the life he left rather than the one he was about to live.
Ariana Rojas got out of the car to greet him. She saw his eyes, consumed with rage, and for a moment she paused, afraid. She approached him tentatively, knowing prison changes a man – and never for the better. “I thought this day would never come,” she said.
“Nor did I,” Rafael replied. He hugged her and, after a moment, he moved away. “But it did. And that’s what matters most.”
They had never been lovers, not even friends. But they united to overthrow the government of Batista. It was a bond formed by many, creating fragments of revolution scattered throughout the country. And as each day passed they organized as needed, grew stronger, became more effective, threatening a government they had once barely bothered.
Click on the below link to purchase THE DROP from Amazon
Why is the excerpt so emotional for you as a writer to write? And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this specific excerpt. The Drop is classified as a dramedy—a drama with comic overtones. Set in Cuba in 1958, it’s about Ariana Rojas, a Cuban revolutionary, who perfectly plans the kidnapping of American businessman, Jimmy Foster. There’s just one problem. Jimmy Foster’s wife won’t pay the ransom.
Click on below link to read about the Cuban Revolution.
https://www.history.com/topics/latin-america/cuban-revolution
I included the first few pages of the book as an excerpt, which describes a Cuban revolutionary’s release from prison. The crime he committed was vocal opposition to the government—he disagreed with totalitarian policies. And he was willing to go to prison to exercise his right to free speech.
The Drop compliments my previous novel, For Those Who Dare, which is set in East Berlin in 1961, just as the Berlin Wall is being constructed. People risk their lives to flee a totalitarian regime.
What I found emotional, or intriguing, was the settings for both books feature totalitarian political regimes. However, in For Those Who Dare, the regime came from the far left of the political spectrum. In The Drop, the regime originates from the far-right side of the political aisle. An interesting lesson, taught by history, on extremes.
Click on the below link to purchase For Those Who Dare from Amazon
Were there any deletions or revisions to share? I usually write revisions in color-coded font. This revision is from the final edit, just prior to finalizing the manuscript for publication. Changes in red font.
Most of the INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION links can be found at the very end of the below feature:
http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2021/03/stephenson-holts-arranged-marriage-is.html