Mengapa menulis?

photo credit: mydharma.ca

Baru-baru ini, sebuah pesan masuk ke dalam inbox Goodreads saya. Seorang kenalan penulis bernama Aksara bertanya, mengapa menulis?

Pertanyaan itu terus-menerus muncul di benak, membuat saya tergugah untuk menulis ini di blog, yang terus terang mulai terabaikan karena kesibukan hehehe.

Mengapa menulis?

Saya bisa memberikan begitu banyak jawaban, tapi semuanya merupakan kamuflase bagi pertanyaan: mengapa menulis untuk diterbitkan? Yang pertama, karena idealisme pribadi yang awalnya bercita-cita untuk menerbitkan satu buku sebelum mati. Idealisme ini awalnya bermula dari mimpi, tapi dilandasi juga oleh keinginan kuat untuk membuktikan kalau saya bisa, kepada orang-orang yang pernah menentang keinginan ini. Bisa juga sebagai cara saya mengeksplorasi diri, karena saya ingin tahu apa saya benar-benar bisa menulis dan punya buku yang diterbitkan, atau memang hanya sekadar angan pungguk yang merindukan bulan. Idealisme yang ada semakin diperkuat saat saya bergabung dengan komunitas penulisan. Di sana, saya merasa 'terasah', berkomunikasi dengan sesama pencinta dunia penulisan, menerima berbagai kritik bertubi-tubi, juga pujian. Dari sana, begitu banyak yang saya pelajari dan rasakan, membuat saya semakin yakin bahwa ini dunia yang ingin saya geluti. Lalu, satu-persatu teman-teman komunitas mulai menerbitkan naskah mereka, kebanyakan lewat penerbit-penerbit terkenal. Jujur, walau saya merasa kagum, saya juga iri luar biasa. Akhirnya, rasa-rasa itu berkembang menjadi keinginan yang lebih lekat dan memacu saya untuk terus berusaha.

Idealisme kembali muncul saat beberapa naskah saya akhirnya berhasil diterima penerbit dan diterbitkan. Dari sana, terngiang ucapan beberapa orang, teruslah menulis! Ada deadline yang kasat mata, keharusan tak tertulis untuk terus berkarya karena saya tidak bisa membiarkan jeda yang terlalu lama dan karya selanjutnya perlu menyusul. Lalu, ada idealisme dalam diri yang mengeset target pribadi, padahal tidak ada yang menagih.Satu dua naskah setahun. Selama ini, saya berusaha menepati 'janji' itu kepada diri sendiri, meskipun sulit, terutama saat jadwal tidak memungkinkan, atau ide enggan menyangkut.

Akan bohong kalau saya tidak menyebutkan bahwa alasan materi pun berpengaruh sebagai jawaban: mengapa menulis untuk diterbitkan? Selama ini, saya menganggap royalti menulis adalah hasil jerih payah yang seluruhnya merupakan milik saya, hasil bergadang menulis, menyempatkan diri di setiap celah waktu, dan berbulan-bulan mengetik, menghapus dan mengedit. Alasan materi pun salah satu alasan signifikan yang melandasinya.

Tapi, kembali lagi ke pertanyaan: mengapa menulis? Mengapa menulis walau naskah hanya mengendap dan tidak diterbitkan, mengapa menulis walau tidak ada deadline atau proyek khusus, mengapa membuka laptop dan mengetik walau merasa lelah, mengapa menulis sungguh-sungguh walau ini kesannya 'hanya' pekerjaan?

Saya tercenung memikirkannya sejenak, dan hanya ada satu jawaban. Saya sungguh tidak tahu.

Yang saya tahu adalah, kata-kata ini mengendap di kepala, menunggu untuk dimuntahkan. Karakter-karakter hidup dalam diri saya, menunggu dengan sabar sampai kisah mereka diceritakan, walau kadang tak sabar juga sih karena saat waktu tak tepat pun mereka terus mendesak :) karena saat saya tidak menulis untuk beberapa waktu, saya merindukannya, tak sabar mencoret-coret buku catatan, atau sampai kata-kata muncul di layar laptop yang tadinya kosong. Karena saat menulis, saya memudar dari dunia saya dan muncul kembali dalam dunia yang saya kreasikan, seperti sebuah rahasia di mana hanya saya yang tahu.

Ah, saya suka menulis. Itu saja jawaban saya. Karena di suatu titik waktu, saya cukup beruntung untuk menemukan satu hal yang saya cintai, dan kebetulan saya diberkati dengan kemampuan untuk melatihnya dan menjadi lebih baik dalam bidang tersebut. Karena saya kemudian sangat beruntung sebab memiliki kesempatan untuk menerbitkan karya, agar dapat dibaca khalayak luas, dan mimpi saya menjadi nyata. Dari sekian banyak hal dalam hidup yang saya syukuri, ini adalah salah satu yang duduk dalam posisi teratas.

Jadi, saya bersyukur, dan tidak mau menyia-nyiakannya. Saya menyukai tulis-menulis, dan ingin melakukannya seumur hidup. Saya beruntung, memiliki pekerjaan yang merupakan passion saya, dan sebaliknya juga, bisa menjadikan hobi ini menjadi pekerjaan.

Mengapa menulis?

Karena saya ingin, dan saya suka. Sesederhana itu :) terima kasih Aksara karena membuat saya berkilas balik dan menyadari satu hal ini.

(book) On Love by Alain de Botton

Synopsis:

"The longing for a destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life" we are told at the outset of Alain de Botton's On Love, a hip, charming, and devastatingly witty rumination on the thrills and pitfalls of romantic love. 

The narrator is smitten by Chloe on a Paris-London flight, and by the time they've reached the luggage carousel, he knows he is in love. He loves her chestnut hair and pale nape and watery green eyes, the way she drives a car and eats Chinese food, the gap that makes her teeth Kantian and not Platonic, her views on Heidegger's Being and Time - although he hates her taste in shoes. 

On Love plots the course of their affair from the initial delirium of infatuation to the depths of suicidal despair, through the (Groucho) "Marxist" stage of coming to terms with being loved by the unattainable beloved, through a fit of anhedonia, defined in medical texts as a disease resulting from the terror brought on by the threat of utter happiness, and finally through the nausea induced and terrorist tactics employed when the beloved begins, inexplicably, to drift away. 

Alain de Botton is simultaneously hilarious and intellectually astute, shifting with ease among such seminal romantic texts as The Divine Comedy, Madame Bovary, and The Bleeding Heart, a self-help book for those who love too much. He is schematically flawless, funny, funky, and totally engaging. 

Filled with profound observations and useful diagrams, On Love displays and examines for all of us the pain and exhilaration of love, asking, "Can we not be forgiven if we believe ourselves fated to stumble one day upon the man or woman of our dreams? Can we not be excused a certain superstitious faith in a creature who will prove the solution to our relentless yearnings?"

Review:

I read this during my flight from Jakarta to Surabaya and back again. It was poignant, sometimes funny, and often insightful. The book (therefore the writer) is intelligent, showing us philosophies on love that we could relate to, some we've passed in stages of our lives so that we can nod and say ah i've been there.. or ponder these thoughts for a while.

While the characters are sometimes annoying (I've never liked Chloe), I find them refreshingly real, and quirky. Each of them has flaws that make them seem like the people we might pass on the street, or someone we used to know, or even the person in each of us. It's amazing how one can make a character just pop to life like that, and I am in awe for that one trait.

However, I do find the pace to be a little slow. I would love to read more about the relationship instead of reading the author's insights about love and the analysis of every single thing. And just a little bit, I feel almost preached on instead of being engaged in a series of smart conversations.

Overall, a unique book with a refreshing concept.

(book) Delirium Stories by Lauren Oliver

Synopsis:

For the first time, Lauren Oliver's short stories about characters in the Delirium world appear in print. Originally published as digital novellas, Hana, Annabel, and Raven each center around a fascinating and complex character who adds important information to the series and gives it greater depth. This collection also includes an excerpt from Requiem, the final novel in Oliver's New York Times bestselling series.

Hana is told through the perspective of Lena's best friend, Hana Tate. Set during the tumultuous summer before Lena and Hana are supposed to be cured, this story is a poignant and revealing look at a moment when the girls' paths diverge and their futures are altered forever.

Lena's mother, Annabel, has always been a mystery--a ghost from Lena's past--until now. Her journey from teenage runaway to prisoner of the state is a taut, gripping narrative that expands the Delirium world and illuminates events--and Lena--through a new point of view.

And as the passionate, fierce leader of a rebel group in the Wilds, Raven plays an integral role in the resistance effort and comes into Lena's life at a crucial time. Crackling with intensity, Raven is a brilliant story told in the voice of one of the strongest and most tenacious characters in the Delirium world.

Review:

I'm a huge fan of the Delirium series, and am currently ordering the last book Requiem (it's still on its way to my mailbox).

This book has the short stories we were once inaccessible to, but I'm so glad it's finally being printed. I love Annabel's story the most, there's a fight within her and more back story we're not privy to, but now we know. There's something tragic about her story, and I love reading about her past.

There's a surprise in Raven's story that I expect will be explored in the third book of the series, although her story is my least favorite. Maybe because she's so badass that I have a hard time identifying with her, and there's something about her that's so difficult to read and relate to.

As for Hana, I finally understand some parts from the first book when the mystery unravels here. I see in the excerpts that there is going to be Hana's POV, so we'll be getting more stories about her. I suppose because she's marrying the mayor, their stories have to intertwine somehow in the middle or end. Will she help Lena?

I'll have to wait two more weeks to find out :)

Also, Emma Roberts is going to be Lena for the FOX TV series adaptation!

(book) Helga's Diary by Helga Weiss

Synopsis:

In 1939, Helga Weiss was an eleven-year-old Jewish schoolgirl in Prague, enduring the first wave of the Nazi invasion. As Helga witnessed Nazi brutality toward her friends and neighbors and eventually her own family she began documenting her experiences in a diary. In 1941, Helga and her parents were sent to the concentration camp of Terez n, where she continued to write with astonishing insight about her daily life. Before she was sent to Auschwitz in 1944, Helga s uncle, who worked in the Terez n records department, hid her diary and drawings in a brick wall. Miraculously, he was able to reclaim it for her after the war. Of the 15,000 children brought to Terez n and deported to Auschwitz, Helga was one of only 100 survivors. Written in school exercise books and translated here for the first time, Helga s Diary is a strikingly immediate and exceptional firsthand account of the Holocaust.

Review:

This was Bookdepository's book of the week last month, and because I like reading about history, especially about the Holocaust, I thought I'd give it a try. Plus, it has wonderful reviews on Amazon.

It is hard not to judge this book without comparing it to other similar themed books, especially the Diary of Anne Frank, and because both are written in the style of a diary. However, there are differences between both, with Helga Weiss being still alive to this day, while Anne Frank had perished. There is also their slight age difference as to when the diary started and ended, and that Anne was in hiding while Helga was sent to a concentration camp.

The book is harrowing, of course, and at times hopeful. But Helga remained so positive throughout the entire ordeal that the feel was less grimy and sad. The book has gone through several edits by the author herself, so that the journal reads like a daily diary when it was not originally so. I wish it had remained the way it was, although the contents would have been more innocent (because of the way it was written by a younger Helga before she knew what was actually happening, as when it was edited, she already had some knowledge about gassing and camps, so it was revised with that in mind).

There is a lack of descriptions, usually in terms of setting, some entries contained mostly just her feelings, so it was sometimes difficult to imagine what she was describing. It was only when I read the interview with Helga that I understood more.

It is hard to review this book because it is a diary of truths, not some fictional story that needs to be rated.

(book) Nobody But Us by Kristin Halbrook

Synopsis:

Will

Maybe I'm too late. Maybe Zoe's dad stole all her fifteen years and taught her to be scared. I'll undo it. Help her learn to be strong again, and brave. Not that I'm any kind of example, but we can learn together.

When the whole world is after you, sometimes it seems like you can't run fast enough.

Zoe

Maybe it'll take Will years to come to terms with being abandoned. Maybe it'll take forever. I'll stay with him no matter how long it takes to prove that people don't always leave, don't always give up on you.

Review:

I once wanted to write about a similar premise, but I wasn't ready yet so the idea just simply vanished.

I got this book because I wanted to feel again that feeling when I wanted to write my first book with this premise, and because the cover is so gorgeous.

A few major setbacks:

- The characters. Flawed, too flawed even. I agree with some reviews on Goodreads, we're being told, not shown. I don't like either character very much, and what's being described as smart does not resonate as an act of intelligence to me. The girl Zoe is too naive, and the male protagonist Will, although quite refreshing, is just a repetitive cycle of lack of self control and a tough guy with a dark past. I wish to see so many different layers and heavy emotional conflict instead of kissing, being on the run, and going back and forth with the same conflicts during the run.

- The pace. The plot. I just wish to see more. Less angst, more action. More thoughtful planning, more adventures, more cat and mouse game. There's so much that could be done with this wonderful material, but all we get is two teens on the run, running out of gas, get into trouble, some angst, everything will be OK, then it's not, and then each is trying to save each other in a very stupid way. They're young, but they come across as really juvenile.

- The ending. It's okay, although I'm disappointed by the twist near the end.

I wouldn't say I enjoyed it very much, but overall it was a quick read. 3/5 stars.