Rob was invented in Potsdam, New York in the early 1970s and spent the majority of his first two decades on Earth in school, culminating in a degree in Computer Science from Rutgers University.

The lack of readily-available coffee in interstellar space grounded Rob’s life-long dream of being an astronaut and so at the age of six he began to write science fiction stories in an effort to explore new worlds from the comfort of warm coffee shops.

After years as the Chief Coffee Officer for a large software company, Rob can now draw from his vast experience as a busboy, waitress, computer systems consultant, lead software engineer, pointy-haired manager and horse stable cleaner to write about the inherent goodness of coffee and its ability to help people overcome their troubles with life, love and zombies.

Rob finds inspiration in his large vegetable garden, his trumpet, the occasional cup of coffee and the number thirteen. He lives in central New Jersey with his wife, two children, dog, tropical fish and many houseplants.

Hamilton, New Jersey, USA

Out of the Darkness – The Red Book, 2010

Soon to be written – The Yang Book, 2010

Lost on Earth – Chapter 1 (2008)

Bad Impressions – Stage Play (1987)

The Legend of Sweetbriar Cemetery – Stage Play (2008)

Thirteenth Dimension

Lousy With Words

Percival’s Place

Twitter

When I received an email from Jodi offering me the opportunity to participate in Chinese Whisperings, my first instinct was to contact my email provider to make sure that the message had not been misdirected. Surely I had been mistaken for some other Rob Diaz! When, after several calls and demands to speak to supervisors, I was assured that it was really meant to be in my inbox, I experienced a combination of surprise, joy, excitement and insane terror (if you grab the closest 8-track tape or MP3 player, put on some creepy horror film music and re-read the phrase “insane terror” using a deep, echoing tone of voice, you’ll get more of a feeling for what I mean). Okay, so “terror” might be a little strong for this feeling… it’s not like I was being asked to take care of kittens or something creepy like that.

I’ve done a fair bit of collaborative writing in my life. Usually it’s just a group of five or ten of us writer-types sitting around with nothing better to do with our time than to make up dorky writing games. We’d set a time limit of, say, thirteen minutes and then each whip out our handy-dandy notebooks to spend those thirteen minutes scribbling a few lines on a page. When the timer sounded the end of thirteen minutes, we’d trade papers and have the next writer continue the scene, repeating this process until the story got back around to its original author.

Of course, we’d try to mess with each other’s heads by writing a few lines that were darn near impossible to follow – such as ending with something like:

“… And then the world exploded into a trillion billion tiny bits of nothing, coating the entire universe with enough toxic waste to destroy any possibility of life.” (for example)

The next author would need to find a way – any way – to continue the story because failure to do so would mean being subjected to many hours of ridicule from his or her peers. So, he or she would take the next thirteen minute writing period to develop a plausible, post-apocalyptic race of toxic immortal zombies (for example). These zombies would spit ZombieAcid ™ into the frozen vastness of the universe which, of course, would ultimately rain down upon some other toxic immortal zombies that resided halfway across the universe, burning them to such a degree that they turned into a race of purple kittens that possessed the ability to use magic to rebuild the universe. Of course, the zombies were immortal so they were still alive (errr, undead) in the mess that was left in the wake of the burning, acidic rain from space and the battle that ensued between the kittens and the zombies caused –

{Time’s up – switch notebooks!}

The next author would then write about the battle between the good, immortal zombies and the evil purple kittens. The result of the centuries-long battle was, of course, that everything turned into non-genetically modified soy – because anything can be made out of soy, even brand new worlds based on love and toxic, acid-spitting, immortal zombies.

Anyway, that’s not what Chinese Whisperings was going to be like. Chinese Whisperings was going to be a friendly, professional collaboration, with each author trying to help the author after them and kind editors who were willing to assist at any time. And so it was a little bit scary to me.

My nervousness about it built as my scheduled time to write came. Partly this was due to the unknown; partly it was due to schedule delays (which are inevitable with a project of this size). Partly it was due to my summer which was… unbelievable.

In the not-quite-thirteen-week period subsequent to the day I was brought onboard as a part of this project, a tornado came through my neighborhood leaving us without power for three days, a partially-shattered roof and several fewer trees; three floods (one knee-deep and two waist-deep) popped up in our front yard and driveway during heavy rain storms; lightning struck our house causing a number of electrical problems; and a major gas leak was detected on our gas line. Oh, and I got stung by a bee (and also poison ivy).

Seriously, I’m not creative enough to make that all up.

The scientist in me would have to write some complex computer modeling software to analyze the weather-Whisperings link within the overall global climate infrastructure to determine whether a tree falling in my yard might be heard by or caused by someone Whispering. But I am reasonably certain that the evidence of a relationship between these events and my participation in Chinese Whisperings is anecdotal at best.

There’s a lot to be said for anxiety fear of kittens anticipation. It has a way of making you work harder and quicker than say, complacency, comfortable slippers and warm, cuddly puppies have. In a normal writing situation, I could have just said “I’ll write tomorrow” or “I’ll write a story about demonic cats that nearly overthrow the government but get distracted by a dissertation on string theory.” But there were editors and other authors depending on me and waiting impatiently to learn whose story I was going to write. And there were my wife, kids and dog who were about ready to throw me out if I didn’t shut up and write it already (I think my guppies were giving me fishy looks, too).

This is, in a nutshell, the beauty of a collaborative project. The feeling of responsibility toward your partners in the effort keeps you going when it is tough. The support of loving, kind and patient editors keeps it from being an abysmal chore and certainly keeps an author on his toes. And the tough love of family keeps you humble. Together, it makes this all possible.

I look forward to see how Chinese Whisperings changes or expands in subsequent editions as I think there are a lot of ways this can grow. In watching The Red Book progress, it has been quite rewarding to see the characters develop as they’ve each gained a story. So many times when you read a book you get the story of one character from beginning to end with a few other characters sprinkled in here and there that (hopefully) add to the plot. In The Red Book we’ll see the stories of ten separate characters. As readers, we get to learn about each character in-depth rather than in passing. In some cases we know the character’s ultimate destination before we learn how they got there. It gives a unique and interesting perspective on the overall story arc to see how each character’s story intersects and parallels the other characters’ stories. I’m excited to see the final version of this book so that I can read it front to back then read it again back to front, allowing me to see each character from a different perspective.

And I’m a lot less scared now because, so far at least… there have been no kittens.

I was surprised when I sat down to begin writing my story for The Red Book and found I had ideas for what to write; lately I’ve had a dearth of ideas coming to me (life has been a bit out of control these past few months to say the least). What made this even more surprising was I typically write science fiction, fantasy or something akin to comedy, none of which were appropriate for this effort. But, for whatever reason, as I stared at my blank screen, ideas started to come to me. So, I started to write… not one story, not two stories… but eleven stories.

All at the same time.

By the time my draft was nearly due in my esteemed editors’ inboxes, I had written all these separate stories, focused on several different main characters, each in varying states of mayhem and disarray, each in varying states of being at or near the target length (in one case, more than four times the target length). I was hoping one of them would take the lead and become The Story, but that simply was not happening.

The solution, of course, was to write a twelfth story to try to pull things together.

I mailed it off and as soon as it cleared my outbox I realized this story was not The Story. But by then it was too late. I went to bed that night at 11:13 PM and spent the night dreaming I would wake up at 4:13 AM to find an electronic pink-slip in my inbox. “Um, we’re sorry Rob, but we’ve decided to go in a different direction with this anthology, a direction that takes us as far away as possible from this worthless piece of drivel you’ve submitted.”

Thankfully, it didn’t quite happen that way. The note that arrived said, basically, “Well, there are some good bits in here, but we’re going to have to do a little work.” That, my friends, is Editor-speak for “There’s a rewrite in your future, buddy.”

So, with Jodi’s and Paul’s feedback in hand, I got started on the thirteenth story and after a few, ahem, revisions, it has become what should have been submitted in the first place.

Since I do not plan my writing ahead of time, apparently even when editors tell me what they want changed, my stories often take their tone and direction from my surroundings, my mood or what I ate for breakfast that day. It was cold, dark, windy and rainy when I was writing “Out of the Darkness,” thus the weather plays a role in the story. I had a migraine, so pain is a part of the story. I was drinking a warm, caffeinated beverage when I wrote it, so coffee might get a mention or two in the story.

The stern looks from Jodi and Paul are telling me I need to be careful not to give away details about the story or its ending, so please forgive my subtle tiptoeing around the subject. “Out of the Darkness” is a story about loss. It’s a story about anger. It’s a story about loneliness. It is a story about hope, friendship and survival. It is a story about one person’s struggle to grow up and find out who she is.

It is, perhaps, a story about coffee.

This was really my first time working with editors. Jodi and Paul were very patient with me and the end result is a much stronger story than we began with. Hopefully I wasn’t too hard to work with despite the clear fact every single word I put onto the page is pure literary genius.

In closing, for those who might think I made up the fact this story you are seeing is the thirteenth distinct story attempt, I present here the first line from each attempt, copied directly from their mildly-embarrassed Microsoft Word documents (in order of their birth):

1. Sandy woke and was disappointed to learn that her good night’s sleep had all been a dream.

2. Susie heaved the box of supplies onto the cart that would bring it and dozens like it back into the storage sheds inside the complex.

3. I woke up this morning with every intention of being disagreeable and I think I accomplished this exceptionally well given my best friend is no longer talking to me, my mother called me “an evil and vile abomination of a girl” and I was kicked out of thirteen separate coffee shops for causing a scene when my latte was made with non-genetically-modified soy milk.

4. “Haven’t seen you around here for a couple of months – nearly all semester – I was starting to think you dropped out or that you lied when you said you liked me,” Jimmy said while he flipped through his brand new copy of “Hunting Fashion” magazine.

5. I removed my shaking hands from the battleaxe that was now lodged securely in his skull, hoping that I would awaken to find that it had all been a terrible dream but knowing full-well that death by battleaxe has no odor when it is in a dream.

6. Susie had spent her childhood being waited on hand and foot but what she really wanted was someone to take care of her mind.

7. It was small and brown and looked kind of funny but I put it in my mouth anyway.

8. Susie opened the door to her suite to find that it was a disaster area, filled with shattered glass from a smashed fish tank, displaced books and papers and a giant, festering pile of broken dreams.

9. No matter how much her father denied it, there could no longer be any doubt: the chicken was most definitely wearing red, rubber pants.

10. The crowd on the street swelled around Susie, suffocating her, blinding her to everything except the colorful umbrellas and rain-spattered cars speeding along the street.

11. Betsy Oliver knew that all of the college kids as well as all of the other campus security officers made fun of the fact that she could never keep her hair completely under her hat, yet she refused to let this fact force her into getting it cut or even into brushing it.

12. Susie was thirteen when everything changed.

13. “Your mother is dead.”

This is the only light of day the first twelve will ever see again… and that should make everyone just a little bit happier. Trust me.