Joseph Rinaldo's Blog, page 6

Komz Reviews A SPY AT HOME

Check out the latest author interview about my ebook, A SPY AT HOME, at http://www.facebook.com/l/YAQCI5ZJp/komzreviews.blogspot.com/2011/09/be-my-guest-author-interview-joseph.html

Is Originality Dead?

In Ecclesiastes 1:9, the Bible says: "...and there is no new thing under the sun." I would have to agree. At the risk of offending Christians everywhere, I have to say that this verse was obviously written with future television commercials in mind. All you sons and daughters of the 50's and 60's, remember when you listened with rapture to The Beatles' "When I'm 64" and all you could think of was how weird it would be to see a 64-year-old Beatle? Well, apart from the fact that it has been VERY weird to see at least two of them reach that milestone, it's even weirder to hear that song in the background of an Allstate television commercial.

I'm sure Aretha Franklin did NOT have in mind selling Hondas when she sang with such passion "Rescue Me". And I can't even begin to tell you how aghast I was to hear Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" played over a video game commercial. Seriously, have advertisers completely run out of anything new to say? Surely, the ad people behind M & M's could have written a commercial jingle that is fresh and new instead of using the classic "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes".

Is it just that they're too lazy or unimaginative to write anything new, or is it that they think that people who grew up in the 50's and 60's are America's major target market for products in 2011? I don't know the answer to that, but I'd be interested to hear what YOU think.

While you're pondering this, let me list a few other unoriginal commercials that use 50-year-old songs to hawk their products:

Budweiser - The Beatles - All Together Now
Nissan - Elvis Presley - Devil In Disguise
J C Penney - Theme song from Love Story, the movie (well, it was made in 1970, but the point is still valid)
Hewlett Packard - Melanie - Brand New Key

Can you name any more?

Fun Author Interview and book giveaway!

Read my fun author interview with Inspired Kathy on her blog I Am A Reader, Not A Writer, at http://iamareadernotawriter.blogspot.com/2011/09/book-giveaway-author-interview-spy-at.html. This interview was a hoot, and many thanks to Kathy!

A SPY AT HOME - Interview with Sylvia Ramsey on Thoughtful Reflections

I am so proud to present my author interview about my ebook, A Spy At Home , with Sylvia Ramsey on her blog, Thoughtful Reflections.

Discussing Joe Rinaldo's New eBook, A Spy AT Home


Joe is getting some really great reviews on Amazon, and this book sounds like a great read. If this is the genre you like to read, I am sure you will want to get his book.

Hello, I am Joe Rinaldo, and I have written nine novels, one of which, A Spy At Home , is available on Amazon. By day I work as Credit and Financial Manager for a heating, ventilating, and air conditioning distributor; we sell to the guys that come to your house. When I first started writing, I thought being a numbers guy would make me an oddity as an author. That's proved to be wrong. The more people I meet in this industry, the more I run across accountants and CFOs. Apparently, creativity infects a variety of people. Of course, I have the same dream as other writers. I hope my book sells a million copies and becomes a smash hit movie. Selling eBooks for ninety-nine cents is not the get-rich-quick scheme I thought it was before being published. It's been a lot of work.

The genre of my books is very hard to pin down. My wife and I have searched numerous times for standardized publishing industry definitions with no success. As silly as that may sound, especially for a person who wants to deal in words as a career, genres are hard to define. A Spy At Home could be considered contemporary fiction, mainstream (this sounds like a synonym for dull), thriller, suspense (what's the difference between thriller and suspense? Shouldn't you be thrilled reading a suspense novel, and shouldn't you wonder what will happen next in thriller?), drama (any book without intense turmoil probably won't be worth reading), or adventure (my main character travels to another continent; that's adventurous, right?). I honestly don't know where my books fall in the narrow definitions of the publishing world; I do know I have tried to make the characters interesting and multi-faceted, moving through difficulties in their lives.

What are some of your books, stories that have been published?

A Spy At Home has been published as an eBook on Amazon. My staff/ spouse and I are learning what works in marketing an eBook. With all the "noise" on the internet, getting noticed has proved incredibly difficult. Sometimes selling eBooks seems to require contacting each individual using the internet. My advice to writers would be this: if you are thinking about self-publishing an eBook, be ready for a long road.

Give a short description of each.

My one and only eBook available for sale at this point is A Spy At Home .

A retired CIA operative comes to believe he wasted his professional life not only promoting questionable American policies, but missing life with his family. To ease the pain, he diverts millions that the CIA expected him to use funding a coup attempt that would establish a pro-American government in an African country. Seeing the coup would fail, Garrison decides to keep the money for himself. The reader can decide if he's a villain with evil intent, a hero with altruistic motives, or a regular guy sick of working for peanuts in a dangerous environment.

Once he's back at home, he and his wife look forward to their golden years being luxuriously comfortable and opulently relaxed. Unfortunately, after his wife dies in a tragic accident, he must learn all that she knew about caring for Noah, their mentally retarded son. After a life of planning for contingencies, the former spy must deal with the possibility that he may die before his son. Who will care for the son when the dad spent a life out of the country and now has no one to lean on?

How do you come up with the names of places and characters in your books?

Naming characters can be tricky. You probably don't want to name the world's leading neurobiologist Bubba Joe Skeeter. I don't like to use names that can be male and female for important characters, e.g. Leslie, Kelly, etc. Others do that, but it's a pet peeve of mine. I also think it's a lazy writer that uses a main character that's a writer. Stephen King did do a great job with this in Misery, but I think a writer whose main character is a writer by day and solves crime at night is pathetic. Back to naming characters, they can convey a lot, but if the name provokes something in the reader's mind, you're most likely playing on a stereotype. A main character named Abe is tall and honest. William Clinton speaks with a southern drawl and does well with the ladies. I change the names of my characters A LOT during the writing process; thank heavens for the Find and Replace command. The names of places in a story can do a great deal to change/set the mood of a scene. For instance I'm typing this from a dark room in Linda's House of Love. Your picture of me changed, probably for the worse, despite the fact that this is a home for abused children and the lights are turned down for the kids to sleep.

How did you develop the character of your protagonist in this book?

Garrison in A Spy At Home really came to me all at once. Suddenly he was in my head. This may not make me a healthy, well-adjusted member of society, but having people and their voices in my head helps me write novels. Hopefully, that makes sense; I don't feel like I did anything. In my mind, Garrison is completely separate person from me.

What about an antagonist…is there a unique "bad guy" or a recurring nemesis of any kind?

The US government is the main antagonist in A Spy At Home . Garrison feels it cheated him. Other bad guys play parts here and there, but the government is the looming evil-doer in the background.

What is your favorite thing about your book?

I love the way Garrison interacts with his wife, Louisa. He's terrible at expressing himself around women, and she patiently puts up with it. You really should read how he proposes! A Spy At Home is serious and intense except where Louisa brings a calming influence.

How is writing in the genre you write, different than other genre?

I never concern myself with genre. In fact, if my books only fit into one genre, that would be insulting.

Why and when did you begin writing?

This is the entire history of my life as a writer. Freshman year of high school we had to write a short story, and the teacher suggested that those struggling ask one of five people to help them. I was one of the five, and she was right. To my surprise, my story was better than most. Ten years later I started to write a book. I read it to my girlfriend (now my wife) and she pointed out that characters weren't telling the story. Those handwritten pages promptly went into the trash can. Eight years later while temporarily unemployed, I was reading Nicholas Sparks' Three Weeks With My Brother (excellent book!). He mentioned that he got a million dollar advance. I said, he writes pretty well, but I can do that. From that point on six years ago I have written and written. Today I have nine completed books that will eventually be published on Amazon.

What is your writing schedule?

I write at night and on the weekends as I have an eight-to-four job. When I was doing most of the writing on the nine books, I worked part-time as an adjunct professor. Teaching really didn't appeal to me in any way, except it provided time to write.

What projects are you working on now, or plan for the future?

I have three books circling in my head. This is part of the business of writing; we had to choose if I keep writing new books or work with an editor to polish the ones already written and get them available for sale on Amazon. We chose to get more books ready for sale. Once these are out for readers, I'll let the flood gates open and write, write, write.

What kind of advice or tips do you have for someone who wants to write and get published?

In my mind, the Christmas of 2010 changed the publishing world forever. That Christmas saw many eReaders given as gifts. As more and more people come to love the convenience of the eReader, the number of paper books will continue to decrease. Authors like me without a publisher welcome this seismic shift in the retail book market. We can put out our books for sale very cheaply and reach many customers. The problem as I've said earlier is distinguishing yourself from the influx of writers doing the same thing you're doing.

Are there any other comments, advice or tips that you would give to beginning writers?

I was at a writer's conference, and a woman was telling me about her historical novel. She found the menu for the heads of states dinner that actually happened and she was using it in her novel. While she said this, I kept thinking that has to be the most boring book ever if you are telling the reader what they had to eat. Research can be good and bad. Research can make the book come alive and seem real. It can also come across as if the writer is bragging about all he/she knows. If your reader wanted to read a textbook, she/he would've bought one. For writing novels the most important thing is being believable, not scientifically accurate.

What do you do when you are not writing?

I like to go boating, running, volunteering for Special Olympics, and of course, reading. Whatever hobbies a person has can and should influence your writing. An important character needs to have some depth, and hobbies help provide that.

What "Made It" moments have you experienced in life?

I have really only had one big one. In May of 2011 we had a goal of selling a certain number of books, and we significantly beat that! Now we hope those that bought the book in May tell their friends about it.

If you want to know about this author, leave a comment to let him know.

Down Syndrome and Public Perception

So many times in my journey as the parents of a child with Down syndrome (now 38 years old),l I have heard people say, "Oh, kids with Down syndrome are so affectionate and loving and want to hug people all the time....." etc. I am here to tell you that classifying all people with Down as "affectionate and loving" is nearly the same thing as saying all blacks love fried chicken and watermelon. It's preposterous.

People with Down syndrome have one thing in common - an extra chromosome on their 21st pair. That's pretty much it. Oh, they have similar features, but as to their personalities and behavior, they are as different as people without special needs are.

My daughter is a wonderful, intelligent, funny, confident adult. She is NOT publicly affectionate, and she really considers her personal space her own. If you met her, she would certainly NOT come up and hug you. As a matter of fact, she has a great deal of respect for other people's personal space as well. I'm not saying she doesn't love some people - she certainly does love her family and friends. But don't expect her to love you automatically just because she has an extra chromosome. It ain't gonna happen. You have to earn her love and respect, just as you would if she didn't have Down. If would not be any more appropriate for you to hug her than it would be for you to hug any stranger upon meeting them, and you certainly shouldn't expect a hug from her any more than you would from any other stranger.

And so, a word to the wise, as I'm sure any other parent of a child or adult with Down would tell you - they are so much more like "us" than like each other. Don't assume anything about people with Down that you wouldn't assume with "us".

A SPY AT HOME - Latest 5-Star Amazon Review!

Thrilling, Heart Wrenching, Suspense Adventure!, August 21, 2011


By Tom McGee "Tom" (Springfield, IL USA) - See all my reviews

(VINE VOICE) This review is from: A SPY AT HOME (Kindle Edition)

Joseph Rinaldo contacted me not long ago and asked me if I would be willing to read and review his book, A Spy at Home. I received the manuscript and began reading it yesterday.

I had to force myself to put it down last night in favor of sleep; however, I thought about it all night long and jumped up early this morning and finished it before breakfast.

Rinaldo knows how to grab and keep readers interested on a variety of levels. Although he kept me on the edge of my chair rapidly flipping dangerously exciting pages that included agencies like the CIA, FBI, NSA, a District Attorney's Office, as well as cyber hackers, this book is not a typical spy novel. It is also a love story that deals with death, adoption and the heart wrenching affects of Down syndrome and Alzheimer's.

Following a severe reaction to a bites from a swarm of mosquitoes, Garrison, a CIA operative, is treated in a secret CIA hospital by his future wife, Louisa.

Some years after their marriage, they notice a fire in a trailers house near their home occupied by a drug addict mother who died in the fire. Her Down's syndrome baby, Noah Kendrick, survived.

With the help of red tape cutting, Clarita Johnson, from the state adoption agency Garrison and Louisa adopted Noah after he was abondoned by his low-life relatives.

With Garrison away on dangerous CIA missions, Louisa was Noah's primary care taker until Garrison retired from the CIA after 20 years service.

Undetected, Garrison stole and diverted to Swiss Bank Accounts, nearly all of 10 million CIA dollars intended for use by African rebels on a mission to dispose of a dictator not friendly with the United States.

Pressure mounts as Garrison's focus on CIA missions diminshes as he stuggles with his son's dehabilitating condition, fears he or his family will be killed by hit men and worries about what to do with the loot without getting caught.

The story is told by Garrison, to be released following his death.

I recommend this novel to those who enjoy fast moving and thrilling suspense adventures.
I can hardly believe this book costs less than two dollars as a Kindle download!

This was my first exposure to Joseph Rinaldo, but it will not be my last. I look forward to the next episode of this haunting story. Enjoy!

A SPY AT HOME - Highlighted Review!

Check out a highlighted Amazon review of my ebook, A SPY AT HOME, on The New Book Review blogsite at http://www.thenewbookreview.blogspot.com/!

The UP Side of Down Syndrome

So, I said on my profile and later in my blog that I would try to educate the reader about all things Down syndrome, and so here I am trying to do so. First of all, Down syndrome is a form of mental retardation that is associated with an extra chromosome on the 21st pair. In other words, instead of two, there are three; thus, Down syndrome is also called Trisomy 21. The degree of mental retardation among this population varies widely, and abilities also vary. Much of what these children and adults accomplish depends on how early intervention and developmental learning is begun.

Though my uncle has Down syndrome, I did not know him very well; when I married my now-wife, she had a daughter with Down who was (at that time) 26 - now 38. Becoming a stepfather to a grown daughter is challenging; becoming a stepfather to an adult daughter with Down syndrome who still lives with her mother was more than challenging. I am very pleased to say that over the past 12 years we have made it work, and she and I are very close and get along about as well as any father and daughter! I've made adjustments in my expectations, and she has worked very hard to get over her jealousy of my spending time with her mom (they were alone without a "dad" in the house for 20 years before I came along).

My daughter is bright, social, determined, and very active. She participates in many Special Olympics events, works as a volunteer for a nonprofit organization, is involved in a Best Buddies program at Vanderbilt University, reads and loves music, and exercises every day. She has no major health problems, though many people with Down syndrome do. We are very fortunate. She works word search puzzles, and she is so good at them that she can finish a whole book of them in no time flat. She is interested in everything, is very self-sufficient, and contributes a great deal to the household.

We are members of the Down Syndrome Association of Middle Tennessee (for which all three of us volunteer and participate in fundraisers), and I am a member of a local D.A.D.S. (Dads Appreciating Down Syndrome) group. Being a parent to a child/adult with Down syndrome presents some unique challenges, but I would not change her or our family for the world.

Like most people with a disability, my daughter is more like "typical" (we don't use the word "normal" - who among us could claim to be normal, and in fact, what does normal mean?) people than unlike them, and I just wanted all my blog readers to know how proud I am to be her DAD.

Patriot or Traitor?

What if you worked for a corrupt government? What if you were the channel through which millions were funneled to support illegal coups in other countries that would benefit your employer? What if you had the opportunity to "divert" some of that wealth into your own pocket with absolutely no risk to yourself or your family? What if you retired from your job as a spy and came home to discover that because of your long and frequent absences, your wife resented you and your disabled son barely knew you? What if you accidentally killed your wife and then had to learn how to take care of your son as he slowly fell victim to the ravages of Alzheimer's disease?

What would you do? How would you cope? How would you get closer to a son that was slipping away from you? How would you provide for his needs in the event that you died before he did? Who would take care of him if you were gone?

Garrison deals with all these critical issues and more in A SPY AT HOME, my ebook available on Amazon for only $1.99. He works for the CIA, but becomes disenchanted when he discovers just how little his employer provides for the families of agents killed in the line of duty. He is fed up with the corruption and graft, and he decides to get out...taking some of the "dirty" money with him. His family can now live in the lap of luxury...or can they?

What happens next?

Blogging: How Do You Keep It Fresh?

As I "work" the internet to promote my ebook, A SPY AT HOME (available on Amazon for only $1.99), I see the hard work other bloggers do to keep up with those who follow them. It's amazing to me. When do they find the time? I have a full-time job and a family, and between that and promoting my ebook, revising the next one I will release - HAZARDOUS CHOICES - and trying to keep up with such things as yard work, etc. around the house, I'm exhausted!

Blogging is interesting. It can either be much like having a conversation with yourself, or it can be like talking to a (admittedly absent) friend. Sometimes the comments I post draw responses - occasionally heated ones - but other times the blog posts just lie there. I am not sure how a blogger draws the interest of blog-readers, and I would be very interested to know how some of the more successful bloggers keep readers tuned in to their blogs day after day.

If you are a successful blogger, please offer me some suggestions for keeping my blog fresh and alive. I'd appreciate it!