Tulis Apa yang Kau Tahu

Each and every writer has his or her own mission in writing. The love for stories, of happily-ever-afters, of mystery, of the beauty of words, anything.

Aku? Masa aku pilih untuk menjadi penulis novel full-time (tak kirela berapa malas pun), dorongan aku cuma satu. Of all feedbacks that I get, most of them wrote the same thing;
"Dulu saya tak suka membaca. Lepas saya baca novel awak, saya rasa nak membaca semula."

It's a feeling like no other. My mission when I first started writing was to write something that i wanted to read. If people like them, then that's a bonus.

But nowadays, writing what I like has gotten more difficult than it used to. It seems that my actual love is horror (nak buat macam mana kalau penulis kegemaran aku ialah Stephen King dan Neil Gaiman). Tapi aku tak pandai menulis novel seram. Aku refuse untuk go against what i believe in so I can never put it inside my novel.

Antara benda yang aku refuse:

1. Aku benci tengok filem seram yang ada reason by the end of the movie.
"Oh, rupanya hantu ni adalah jelmaan bekas isteri pemilik rumah ni yang nak balas dendam..." what a baloney. Can't we just do the Kowaii Onna ghost where she just haunt people because she can? Something is always scarier without a motive. That's what makes sociopaths like Dennis Nilsen (the British homo who killed 16 men and stuffed them around his house) and John Wayne Gacy (a.k.a. The Killer Clown) scary. They have no ulterior motives at all, and not even dark history to justify it by. I guess my alter ego as a movie reviewer juga menyebabkan aku banyak cekadak. Hahaha.

2. Aku refuse untuk have beautiful women in my book.
Everything in my writing is plain. The hero, the heroine, the storyline, even my own name (Nurul Syahida adalah nama yang sangat plain. Tak ada sesiapa dengar nama "Nurul Syahida" dan fikir "Siapakah gerangan gadis yang indah namanya ini?"). I want something that I can relate to. Being beautiful is not relatable to me in any way possible. Being beautiful dan cute, friendly dan tidak mudah patah semangat ala2 heroine drama Korea laaaaagi tak relatable to me. Now you know why I stopped watching KBS dramas.

3. Aku refuse untuk meletakkan hero kaya.
Kalau ada, sipi2 sajala kedudukannya. I don't believe in Cinderella story. Aku tak nak memupuk semangat pisau cukur ke dalam mana2 wanita. Hahaha. I like writing about normal guys and make them extraordinary. The dude yang jaga cybercafe near your house may be funnier and more easy going than your uptight rich upper class bachelor boss. The guy you find annoying might be the coolest guy ever and the plain joe in your office might actually be the diamond in the rough. Tak ramai aku tengok pompuan yang kahwin dengan lelaki sebab kekayaan atau rupa mereka, jadi kenapa nak menyanjung yang indah2 saja dalam novel? Tapi kalau memang ada niat nak sanjung, aku takleh kata apa lah, maybe your not my kind-of reader and I'm not your kind-of writer. Here we part ways.

4. Aku bertudung.
That is why semua heroine aku bertudung. Bertudung dan mengajak orang untuk bertudung adalah kewajipan aku sebagai Muslim. I don't know how to do it in any other way. God gave me the gift of writing, and that is how I should use it.

5. Aku bukan feminist.
So none of my characters bersifat feminist. Hard headed, thoughtful, maybe. But never feministic. I am more Desperate Housewife-ish rather than Sex and the City-ish. Justice between the two genders, not equality. You can't ask a man to get pregnant and you can't ask woman to not be emotional. We have our own best of abilities.

6. Aku tak suka sedih.
I hate movies like "1 Litre of Tears", "A Walk to Remember" or "100 Days of Summer". I don't watch things that make me depressed. So I don't write like that. I wanna put smiles on people's face. Aku amat menghormati mereka2 yang boleh menulis cerita2 sedih sebab aku tak mampu nak buat macam tu. The misery of my real life should not be interpreted into a book................... unless aku dah kehabisan idea.

7. I like wits and banters.
Kata seorang fellow writer, wits dan banters adalah trademark buku aku. It is so important to know what your trademark is in order for you not to lose your way or tertiru cara penulisan penulis lain. Setiap novelis sangat cherish trademark penulisan diorang dan sangat tidak suka bila orang lain ambil idea mereka. So knowing your trademark is freakishly important, so that when people talk about your writing, they will say "Si polan tu menulis macam Nurul Syahida" instead of "Nurul Syahida menulis macam si polan."

8. Tulis apa yang anda tahu.
Kalau tak tahu, kaji. And I mean kaji not as in tengok cerita lain tentang subjek yang kau nak kaji itu. Sometimes drama kat TV tu pun pembongak jugak. Ada ke architect pakai topi kuning? Tulis through experience, bukan your own opinion about an experience you never went through.

9. Never to compare me with Hlovate.
I think none of us two liked to be compared. We debuted almost at the same time and I bet we both never read each others' books to say who copy who. Hlovate has more fans and published works than I do and I think they would also agree to not compare us.

So, that is my guideline in my writing.

*Currently menulis novel keempat, kelima dan keenam secara serentak, sebab tu tak selesai2.