Stroke of Genius (Archie Lemons #3)
Page 17
I won't bore you with all the other details, but it just got worse and worse. So, if you take nothing else away from my writings, please take this: NEVER STAY AT THE ARIA! Don't even go in there. Don't even fucking look at it. Ignore it like the fat girl at the party. Please!
To be fair, by the end of the trip, my wife and I had ditched everyone else involved and journeyed out to do our own thing, and it proved to be far more fun than what had been planned anyway. It reminded me of what really matters, the people you love.
Anyway, let me get back on track. In regards to having the story before the plot. Did I mention how hilarious I find it when people kill themselves while jerking off? No? Oh, well I do! How dumb do you have to be to die while masturbating? Seriously. So, I knew I wanted to touch on this subject a bit. It's just too funny not to. I even through in some INXS jokes and a few David Carradine jokes, just to class this bitch up a bit.
When all my jokes were in place, I decided to actually focus on a plot and a murder, and when I did, Stroke of Genius was born, and I'm pretty proud of it. A lot of people tell me this is their favorite Archie book. Thanks for that.
The character of Gena is actually based on my friend Karlee's mom. She said she wanted to be a character, so I made her a dumb hooker. Why not? She was a good sport about it and I don't think we've seen the last of Gena! She's too funny and way too clingy to not pester Archie some more later on down the line.
The masturbator is played by my buddy Carl Balthazar August Lange IV. I'm not sure if he gave me permission to use his name, but eh, we're buddies, what's he going to do?
Everyone else, except the terrible Aria staff, was fictional, again.
As for edited parts, this one had quite a few. I remember the beginning actually touched upon how emotionally destroyed Elise was after nearly being killed in A Touch of Danger, but that's boring and no one wants to read about Debby Downer shit, so it got the boot. Booted along with it was Archie's first Christmas without his wife and his spiral into self-destruction. Again, not funny and didn't fit the tone of this book. So it was gone and instead we get a pretty big time jump and find everyone happy again, where they belong, with poor Archie now, rather inappropriately, crushing on his sister-in-law. Does Elise feel the same way? Will she freak out at the thought? Will she care too much about what everyone else would think? Well, I guess that's up to you. For now, at least.
Also edited out was an entire chapter entitled A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Vegas. In this chapter, I spend about three thousand words describing a horrible, horrible encounter Archie has at The Barstow Station! Anyone who has ever driven to Vegas from Southern California has at least seen this stinking pile of disgusting mess disguised as a legitimate eating establishment. And if anyone has ever, actually, stopped in, they'll know why Archie would have such a freak out.
It's a packed, disgusting, hodgepodge of shitty shops and even shittier restaurants, crammed into what looks to be some hollowed out train cars. It's a stop for all the foreigners on their way to wherever the hell they're going. It stinks to high hell, the foreigners all have stupid clothes, it's claustrophobic and my god is it nasty. We stopped in their ONCE on a boy's trip at the request of a friend. Needless to say, I did not eat. In fact, I needed to get the hell out of there as quickly as humanly possible. YUCK!
Anyway, maybe I'll scrounge up that chapter sometime and release it as a little short story. It was quite humorous, but it was totally unnecessary to the plot and pretty much stopped all the momentum the story had.
Also gone is Archie obsessing over the television monitors in the surveillance room. It's still kind of there, but Archie in all his autistic glory, let it go on for far too long and it didn't make for very fun reading. I deleted, also, about fifty more funny porno names, again for pacing sake, and condensed the ending a bit to make it tighter and get on to what really mattered. Archie and Elise, standing in that cemetery.
That's it for now. Thank you for reading or perhaps re-reading my little stories. I have another book out now that isn't part of the ARCHIE LEMONS SAGA called The Lost & Found, which I'm also very proud of. I'm currently working on another stand-alone-but-possibly-a-series called Thick as Thieves, though the title may change...again. I think you'll like it. It's about a con-man father teaching his young son the ropes of being a thief. Not sure when it will be out, though.
Please feel free to contact me at any time with your questions or comments. I would love to hear from all of you.
Again, thank you all so much. It's almost Christmas as I'm writing this, so please remember to take some time for yourself. Don't be so rushed that you don't stop and pay attention to the small things that make life worth living. Be good to each other and check your shitters often. I hear they fill up quickly. Ha! Happy Holidays, everyone!
Love,
Grant Fieldgrove
12/09/12
Thank you to all my family and friends. Your kind words and continued support never ceases to amaze me.
You all inspire me.
Special thanks, in no particular order, to:
Julie & McClane, Mom & Dad and the in-laws, Greg, Carl, Rox, Lisa, Banker, Dani, Jeni (I look forward to your contribution to the wonderful world of literature,) Leslie, Tayler, Gena for being a good sport, Melissa, Gail, Carly, Summer, everyone who has come out to the signings and events and countless others that I know I am forgetting. Sorry.
Thank you all so very much!
Grant Fieldgrove lives in Bakersfield, CA and is the author of Darkness Once More, A Touch of Danger and The Lost and Found
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