Meet Our Team: Rob Diaz, Ticket Master
Meet Rob Diaz, a volunteer extraordinaire lending his time and talents all the way from New Jersey! No doubt you’ve met Rob in the forums as Lousy Writer 13. Now learn more about the man behind the username…
Rob, how long have you been participating in NaNoWriMo? Do you participate in Script Frenzy, too?
This will be my sixth NaNoWriMo—2006 was my first year. My wife and children participate as well. I’ve tried for the past few years to get my kids’ teachers to bring the YWP into the classroom and for the first time I think one of them is (my son’s fourth grade teacher). We look forward to November every year! On a personal note, my favorite number is 13 and with this year being the 13th NaNoWriMo, I expect big, fantastic things!
I have intended to participate in Script Frenzy each year as well, but I seem to end up traveling for work or with other deadlines during April so it hasn’t worked out. I am very comfortable with scriptwriting and have had several scripts produced, so it is truly about the time factor. I have an idea for a musical that I want to write for Script Frenzy one of these years, so hopefully I’ll get that done some time. My daughter is the only one in my family who has won Script Frenzy so far (a fact of which she reminds us every year in and around April).
Are you a plotter or a pantser? Do you tend to write in any specific genre?
I don’t know how to say it with enough emphasis: I am totally, completely, 100% a pantser. I am not sure why this is, but I’ve grown to just embrace it as my way of writing. Perhaps it is due to the fact that every other aspect of my life feels scripted and writing doesn’t need to be. I really don’t know. But ultimately, I just let the characters drive the plot. I’ll take an interesting character that pops into my mind at some random time and then I’ll set them in an interesting situation which also may have popped into mind at some other random time. (Rarely do the two show up at the same time for me).
So, maybe I’ll stick a character into a field of dandelions. What’s going to happen? Who knows. It might be that the character bends down to look at an odd-looking dandelion and finds a tiny, cute alien from Mars which then attaches to the character’s cerebral cortex and turns the character into an intergalactic warlord. Or perhaps the character will be out in the field to pick dandelions in order to make wine because the region’s evil vegetarian overlords have outlawed coffee. Or maybe the character wants to transplant the dandelions into their neighbor’s lawn because the neighbor has won the Greenest Lawn Award for 13 years in a row.
The point is: I don’t know how the character will handle whatever situation I put them in until they are there handling it and words start filling up the page. Being a pantser is exciting, especially during NaNoWriMo when the whole point is to just get the words written rather than worrying so much about getting the right words written. Since I never know what is coming, I’m excited to keep writing, just as I’d hope a potential reader might be excited to keep reading.
Don’t get me wrong—there are days when I wish I could be a plotter, even for just a little while. Unfortunately, nearly every time I’ve tried to plot or outline ahead, I’ve ended up not completing the project. The only exception has been when I’ve co-written a piece and my co-author needed or wanted to have at least a general outline in order to write successfully. Aside from that, I don’t know if I’ve ever done an outline in the traditional sense. Don’t tell my high school Language Arts teachers… but whenever I was required to turn in an outline in advance of a paper or story, I would write the paper or story and then outline it. On the bright side, I never needed to pull a last-minute all-nighter to get things written for school—they were always done early, so in a strange sort of way, I guess the fact that outlines were required helped me.
As far as genre goes, I tend to write science fiction, fantasy and comedy, though I dabble in other genres from time to time. In fact, the first time I ever wrote in the fantasy genre was my NaNoWriMo 2007 novel, Darkness Falls. I had never even considered writing fantasy before that but it was so much fun that I’ve been writing more of it since then. The truth is, though, that I tend to blend genres a lot. While it might be predominantly science fiction, there will be elements of fantasy or comedy or, perhaps, historical fiction mixed in. I have found myself writing a lot of first-person point of view pieces lately, too, which is new for me in the last year or two. I haven’t yet written anything in the second person point of view, though there are some people who have challenged me to do that for NaNoWriMo one of these years.
When did you start volunteering your time and talents toward improving our sites and systems?
I suppose I started volunteering with OLL in 2007. It was unofficial that year in that I just kind of hung around and made a nuisance of myself in the tech forums by “helping” (note the quotes) Dragonchilde. Dragonchilde didn’t need my help, of course, but I went ahead and tried anyway. In 2008, I was granted the official title of Moderator in the “Tech Help, Suggestions, and Rules” forums, which I maintain today (on both the main site and YWP). In 2009, I helped design and code the Donation Derby pages. This year I added the TicketMaster title as well, which means I’ve been managing the bug and enhancement writing process for the beta-test period and the site’s relaunch. I take requests and comments from users, replicate the issues, write them up for the developers, and then re-test when the issues are fixed.
I help out because I believe in OLL’s mission to make kids and adults fall in love with writing. I help because NaNoWriMo helped me rediscover my love of writing after I’d had a long period during which I didn’t write at all. Mostly, I just hope I’m helping, because that’s what it’s all about, right?
When you’re not participating in OLL events (and improving them), do you continue to write?
Yes, I write a lot, though nowhere near as much as I want to write. I have short stories published in five anthologies and have had three scripts performed, the most recent of which, The Good Old Days (co-written with my friend and fellow NaNoWriMo participant Matt Robb), was staged September 29 through October 1 by a local community theater group, the Cross Creek Players. I am a regular monthly columnist on the Write Anything blog. My own writing blog, Thirteenth Dimension, has a number of stories on it and I’m hoping to get more consistent with posting starting in the New Year.
And for my day job, I write code… though somehow that doesn’t seem to count as “writing” for most people.
Any other talents and passions?
Talents or passions… Hmm. Well, I have played the trumpet for 30 years, a love which my daughter has picked up as well. My son, though, chose to blaze his own trail by picking up the saxophone.
I am an avid organic gardener. My garden is my entire backyard (complete with walking paths and benches). I grow almost entirely heirloom fruits and vegetables. This year I had tomatoes (27 varieties), sweet peppers (10 varieties), eggplant (6 varieties), potatoes (3 varieties), carrots (10 varieties), watermelon (2 varieties—yellow-fleshed and white-fleshed), cucumbers (2 varieties), beets, cantaloupe, asparagus, blueberries, peas, beans, sweet potatoes, garlic, onions, hazelnuts and grapes.
I listen to music almost all the time. I love classical music and raw jazz (especially trumpet-focused) as well as rock. Some of my favorites are REO Speedwagon, Chicago, Paramore, Billy Joel, Miles Davis, and anything composed by Tchaikovsky.
I don’t know if I’d say I am talented at it or not, but I’ve also done a little acting lately. The most recent roles I’ve played are King Vordlick in The Good Old Days (2011), and Mayor Shinn in The Music Man (2010). I’m told I did well in these roles.
What is something Wrimos would never guess about you?
Something Wrimos would never guess about me? I don’t know…
Sometimes I drink decaf?
Nah, that’s not good enough.
I have 36 solar panels on my roof to provide most of the electricity my house uses.
That’s interesting, perhaps, but only in a boring, nerdy sort of way (my favorite kind of way).
When I was growing up, I wanted to be an astronaut and a baseball player. I hurt my shoulder as a senior in high school (I was a pitcher and a shortstop, so my shoulder was kind of critical) and when I went to career fairs I was told I couldn’t be an astronaut because of my need for eyeglasses. In the end, it’s probably best, given my discovery that I absolutely despise traveling. Loathe it, with a passion rarely seen. No matter what the reason is for the travel (work, vacation, going to parties, etc.), I hate it. I have even fashioned myself a job where my commute is up and down my basement stairs—I work in the basement of my house. On the bright side of this hatred of travel, I suppose it lends itself to a somewhat funny, definitely way-too-wordy travel blog.
Let’s see, what else? Oh…
I am birthday buddies with Erik Estrada of CHiPs fame. That makes me famous, too, right?
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