Sunday, July 19, 2015

Author Carinci inspired by woman's diary

Author Carinci inspired by woman's diary

Posted: Sunday, July 19, 2015 7:00 am
Name: John Paul Carinci
Age: 59
City in which you reside: Staten Island, N.Y.
Day job: Insurance executive
Book title: “Defying Death In Hagerstown”
Genre: Suspense fiction adventure
Synopsis of book: Louis Gerhani is a hard-drinking, heartbroken, newspaper reporter for the Washington Gazette. He is disinterested in life after his fiancée left him for a doctor, and his final assignment in order to retain his job is to write a full story on Lolita Croome, a 110-year-old philosophical woman, and the oldest living person in the country, who lives in a nursing home in Hagerstown.
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Price: $15.24
What was your inspiration in writing this novel?
The idea for this fiction book happened purely by accident, when I won a diary from eBay, which was penned in 1923, by a young woman from Hagerstown. The 90-year-old diary of 365 pages was fully handwritten by a young woman with only a first name in the diary. I knew there was a story there somewhere, but more importantly, I was drawn into the time, the young woman, the love interest she had throughout the year.
What process did you go through in creating your characters? By whom were they inspired?
The characters were inspired loosely on many characters in my life, my community, work and even by people I have befriended in Hagerstown over the more than seven years I have researched this and other books of the local areas. You see, I take a certain trait of a person and mix them with many other traits to form one new character.
People often say the personality of an author can be found in his or her writing. Did your novel accurately portray your personality and/or point of view on life?
Yes, I have put some of my own personality into the protagonist. Also, the inspirational messages throughout the novel are from my philosophy on life, love and even the hereafter in which I so strongly believe. Because of my past three self-help, motivational books, I was able to interject many of the messages of faith and hope into this book, though the eyes of the 110-year-old, very philosophical Lolita, about whom the story revolves.
Was there a specific reason you chose to make the protagonist of this novel a reporter?
We needed the reporter to tell the story, but more importantly, we needed a very disillusioned person, someone at the end of their rope, ready to give up on life, on love, and almost turn to the gutter — someone battered so badly by terrible news stories with which he had been bombarded.
Did this novel require any research? If so, can you explain your process of incorporating factual evidence into a fictional story line?
I was consumed with finding out who and whatever happened to this young woman from Hagerstown. It took two years to find out who she was, that she married the love interest from the diary and when she passed on. It wasn’t untiI I researched this woman fully that I decided to write a novel. So I wrote a fictional suspense novel, based very loosely on a character from Hagerstown. Because I was so touched by the diary and the year 1923, I incorporated a diary in the novel that is used somewhat in solving a triple-murder mystery that had been unsolved since 1923.
The novel discusses many ideas affiliated with religion, proposed by Ms. Lolita. Was this your own internal desire to include a religious aspect in the novel, or was it solely for the purpose of creating Ms. Lolita’s character?
My motivation for the past 40 years has been and still is to touch someone, to encourage them to help themselves. I tried to, through a very philosophical Lolita, to help the reader feel good about themselves, life, and to appreciate all that they have going for themselves in their own life. My first goal in writing was to inspire people the way I was positively inspired at age 21 by attending a speech by the Rev. Bob Richards, an Olympic gold medal winner and motivational speaker. That was the turning point of my life. I soon became very successful. His speech motivated me to consume motivational and inspiring books by Og Mandino, W. Clement Stone, Napoleon Hill. My goal was to one day motivate and change someone’s life the way I was motivated to change my attitude and life forever. That is why I wrote the three self-help books.
How has this novel differed from the other books you have written?
Because I had been so touched by the diary, the town of Hagerstown and the friends I made in Hagerstown in the years of research, I feel that this may in fact be the best and exciting book out of the nine I have written thus far.