Smells like Teen Spirits. I mean, real spirits. Not the deodorant or the motivated feeling.

Jika anda adalah FB friends saya (it's HERE if you are not aware of it), ya, akhir bulan depan Insya-Allah sekuel SEKOLAH BANYAK PENUNGGU akan keluar.

Ini cover-nya:

SEKOLAH BANYAK PENUNGGU 2.0

But that's not the cool part. The cool part is if if you put it next to SEKOLAH BANYAK PENUNGGU, it looks like this:

Awesome, innit?

Tentang apa? Kalau dah baca, senang kata, it's what happened four years since the 'incident' that happened di Bilik 34 (ke 32? Aku sendiri tak ingat apa aku tulis. Haih). Kalau belum baca, well, it's a compilation of ghost stories, some made-up, and some did occur zaman aku sekolah menengah dulu. Dengan erti kata lainnya, kisah-kisah seram asrama.

Well, of course, since it's published under Teenprima (which is the Teen/Kids unit of Buku Prima), penulisannya ada sedikit berbeza dengan buku dewasa. Kurang English, dan lebih mesra remaja. Tapi kalau tanya apa uniknya dengan buku kedua ni, well... dalam buku kedua ada kisah yang berlaku pada aku sendiri masa zaman duk asrama dulu. I even use my own name, though ceritanya aku exaggerate sikit (kalau tak exaggerate, nanti korang macam baca nota kelas pulak...)

excerpt from the book. Click on it untuk besarkan

The cover designer is still the same person, Nina (who did SBP dan AKU KELIRU), while kali ni editor bertukar dari Poja ke Nine (pronounced as Nee-ne, bukan Nain). Yes. It's true. My cover designer dan editor bernama Nina dan Nine. 

Not sure whether akan ada buku ketiga atau tak. I really do want to make it my thing, you know... tulis feel good stories untuk buku dewasa, dan buat seram komedi for teens. But then again, I am not sure yet. Lepas ramai orang kata susah gila nak jumpa buku SEKOLAH BANYAK PENUNGGU kat kedai buku (toksah citer kedai lain la, MPH tak jual langsung), maybe I have to rethink my priority.

Anyway, buku baru ni akan keluar akhir Jun ini. AKHIR Jun... or probably July. Who knows. Tapi kalau susah nak jumpa kat kedai, boleh beli dengan ejen saya, Abang Long di talian 019-2254910 (just SMS him, he'll get right back to you. He's cool, no worries). Dulu ada website-nya, arrazi, tapi sejak akhir-akhir ni problem plak. So you can also visit him HERE instead.

Like always, setiap pembelian through Abang Long will get you ucapan penulis dan signature (if you want. I won't force you to get my signature. It doesn't worth anything in eBay anyway.. ahahaha).

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SINOPSIS "SBP 2.0":

Fadzilah sedang mencari jawapan kepada misteri yang telah berlaku kepada Pak Cik Baie ketika mengalami serangan jantung di Koperasi SMAX. 

Oleh kerana itu, dia sanggup bekerja di SMAX yang terkenal sebagai sekolah banyak penunggu sementara menunggu keputusan SPM. Dalam pencariannya, dia bertemu Muhaimin dan Dinie yang mempunyai banyak kisah seram yang ingin diceritakan. 

Apakah agaknya jawapan kepada pencarian Fadzilah itu? Semuanya akan terjawab dalam Sekolah Banyak Penunggu 2.0.

“Kenapa semua cikgu kat sini sensitif sangat pasal topik hantu?” ¤ Fadzilah

“Seram, kan? Kalau saya nampak, saya pun meracau agaknya.” ¤ Muhaimin

“Sebab ini cerita hantu yang ikhlas. Saya tak suka nak menambah-nambah cerita. Cukuplah pengalaman masa tingkatan satu dulu.” ¤ Dinie

Tiga Tahun Yang Mengelirukan

"Kalau orang suka buku kau, kenapa buku kau tak bestseller?" tanya seorang member.

Aku terpempan kejap, sebelum jawab, "Mungkin orang unik je yang suka buku aku."

Ahahahahaha. Aku memang tak tau nak jawab soalan ni. Ini soalan tentang rezeki Allah. Mungkin kalau buku aku bestseller, aku jadi bongkak tak bayar zakat. Mungkin kalau buku aku bestseller, nanti aku rasa aku paling bagus. Atau mungkin suatu hari nanti buku aku akan bestseller, cuma masanya belum tiba. How would I know?

I adopt the same ideology about jodoh.
Kalau ada, then kahwin. Kalau takde, then tak kahwin.
Kalau laris, Alhamdulillah. Kalau tak laris, well, continue living. Kalau ada orang nak tabur pasir dalam periuk nasik? Well, just punch them in the face and continue writing.

I have promised to write about my experience writing AKU KELIRU dan aku dah delay benda ni tersangatlah lama. I will do my SELF-OBSESSED TRIVIA some other time, when the book's period on the rack dah lama sikit.

For now... let's talk about how weird it is that I wrote the thickest novel that it had to be edited again so that some of my yappings had to be left out. It was 810 pages long when it was changed to InDesign version despite the fact that it was only 560 pages when I sent it to my editor (okay, so it's actually 560 pages yang ditulis guna font saiz 11 dan langkau 1.5 baris, instead of 12 and 2.... so sebenarnya aku rasa kalau aku hantar manuskrip tu dengan format sepatutnya, it would have been over 700)

Truth be told, I hate sequel. Hate it. Sekuel pada aku... macam some sort of a cheap move for orang yang tak ada idea. Kalau dalam industri filem, unless the movie is a trilogy, sekuel hanyalah bukti that the original movie was a huge success and the film studio is just cashing in on the hype.... which usually menghasilkan produk2 tak berkualiti (*cough*Transformers2&3*cough*)

Tapi aku buat jugak sekuel AKU KAN NOVELIS. Why? Sebab gmail aku dipenuhi requests yang bernada "Kak, tak puasla Roul sikit je. Buatlah sekuel."

Satu lagi, mungkin sebab aku memang hipokrit dan cakap tak serupa bikin. Maybe. Ahahahaha.

And the actual reason ialah sebab walaupun pada mulanya aku tak nak buat, one day, I just opened MS Words, and suddenly the words flow macam air terjun Lata Iskandar. It was so easy revisiting Safiah dan Roul and ideas kept flowing. But it still took me three years before I actually finish it. Kenapa?

Sebab aku malas Sebab I had to try to make it stand alone. I know that BUKU PRIMA was not that keen about sequels (especially since AKN pun tak la laris mana pun). You see, kalau nak cuba rationalise pun, you have to understand that Buku Prima, atau induknya, Karangkraf, adalah sebuah syarikat yang buat bisnes. They're not charity organisation. "Ha apa? Kau nak keluarkan novel sesuka hati kau tanpa pikir ada orang nak baca ke tak? Silakan..."

Takde makne la boleh buat macam tu. Ahaha.

So, untuk hasilkan sekuel AKN, aku kena cuba yakinkan yang it can stand alone without its predecessor. Aku perlu yakinkan editor aku yang even if you don't read AKN, you can understand AKU KELIRU. Aku perlu yakinkan dia orang yang kisah Safi, Roul, Iza, Helmi, Masni, Zaniel, Chaq, dan Jis ni worth the attempt. That took me three years. Well, of course, aku takde la mengharap laris juta-juta ke ape ke. I mean, come on. Let's be real. You don't go around saying "That novelist Nurul Syahida" and people say, "Yeah, I know her..." I am not that memorable.

Tiga tahun masa yang aku amik, bayangkan berapa banyak kali aku tekan delete button. I didn't want to make it too dramatic. I didn't want it to turn into some sinetron (masuk hospital, death, amnesia, penculikan, stolen identity, pencakukan ginjal, stuff like that). AKN in a nutshell adalah kisah seorang novelis bajet bagus yang sebenarnya as clueless as anybody else when it comes to relationship. And I want her to keep being that novelis bajet bagus yang sebenarnya clueless about relationship who is slowly learning that relationship is as tough as a rock if you are not willing to bend a little.

That's the whole point of "Teori dan Praktikal dalam Perhubungan adalah Dua Benda Berbeza", because Safiah, like meself, adalah theoretical being. We both suck at practicality. We have answers to others' problems because we understand the theory, but it doesn't mean we would do what we advice others to do.

Dalam masa tiga tahun tu, banyak benda yang berlaku dalam hidup. Aku dan kawan2 aku menang kes di Mahkamah Tinggi, then Mahkamah Rayuan buat taik dengan aku dan kitorang kalah semula. Aku buat bisnes dengan Mun jual Chocolate Strawberry pies, aku berhenti jual Chocolate Strawberry Pies. Aku buat terjemahan, and then aku stop buat terjemahan bila I realised that it took a lot of my time dengan bayaran yang not worth it at all. I met a nice guy, I did a stupid thing by not being ready for a nice guy, I lost a nice guy. I got thinner, I got fatter, I got thinner again, and then I gained weight, in an endless circle of calorie wars. My cousins got married, my cousins got pregnant, my cousins got kids. My two blogger friends got married, my best friend got married, got pregnant, and got a baby boy. I tried to write AK, I stopped a while and write something else, I return to AK. I got sad about things, I became positive about things, I feel nothing about things, and I live an autopilot life later on. I want to be different, then I want to be normal, then I think trying to be anything is just a cliche, and then think that trying not to be cliche is just a cliche in itself, and then think that I need to stop using the word cliche because I am getting sick and tired of the word being used in every day life nowadays and I feel like the monster who vomited that word and make it linger in the book industry and now just want to say, "Okay, I am sorry. Let's not use the word ever again!!!". These things happen in the course of three years of me writing AKU KELIRU. Yes, it all molds perfectly into my realm of thinking.

To sum it up, tajuk novel aku ni sebenarnya sangat sesuai dengan keadaan diri aku sekarang. I am just a confused person trying to make sense of the world around me.....................................................

What the hell am I writing right now?

When people starts war of the words on FB

The older I get, the more annoyed I am with social networking sites.

Just the other day, someone I know was angry at another someone who is also a Facebook friend. The issue was?

A wrote an ambiguous post about her feelings and B thought A was talking about her. So B PM-ed A to ask if she was talking about her, but A did not reply. However, B said she swear A has read her PM because there is that 'seen at' thingy under the message, which shows at what time A has read the PM.

So, angry with A, B decided to write her own ambiguous FB post about dishonesty in friendship, and somehow, C, D, and E began to discuss it, with each and every one of them asking if B was talking about them.

I can imagine what happens next. It's cyclical.

Before I begin babbling about the human interaction in Facebook, I would like to point out several things:

1. Those 'seen at' thing are not to be trusted. 
- I mean, a while ago, Mun was staying overnight at my house, and when I was talking to Nad in our group chat thingy, the thingy wrote "Seen by Munira" despite the fact that Mun is in the toilet. It either means:
a) Someone back home is using her laptop and reading her messages
b) That thing is just stupid 
- I mean, I had trouble with someone last year who called me 'sombong' because I didn't reply to her message when I actually hasn't been reading any messages. She said that I have read it (because of that 'seen at' thing) when the truth is, I have not been on Facebook at all. I don't even have internet on my phone to be able to surf just anywhere.

2. The world does not revolve around you
- I don't know about others, but if you're talking about me, I am just the type of person who would just write ambiguous things because I feel like it, or because I had a chat with someone who told me their problems and I decided to say something about the problem. It doesn't have to be about me or about me having a conflict with anybody. I just like to express stuff because I am a writer. Wordplays are my thing.

Now, back to babbling about Facebook. I mean, seriously? What are you doing on Facebook? Going around reading statuses and making sure that everybody loves you and has nothing bad to say about you? Fine, if someone is actually using your name and say shit about you, but I find it ridiculous for someone to make a big deal about sentences such as "Persahabatan tak bererti tanpa pengorbanan", and saying things like, "I know she is talking about me. What's her problem?"

Well, what's YOUR problem?

Stop reading Facebook posts if you're the type of person who misunderstands easily. I used to feel that way. Whenever someone wrote something about a writer who is this and that, I kept thinking if they are talking about me, but then my friends kinda give me the allegorical slap in the face by saying, "Stop thinking everything is about you. It's not".

So, it doesn't matter if it IS about me. I can't spend much of my time wondering who likes me and who doesn't and why that person can't say shit to my face. It's not healthy. Writing things on Facebook is therapy for some, and unless you really are interested in learning whatever it is they are saying (and not just for the sake of gossiping), stop basing your conflict on every single thing written on FB.

As much as you should never be a bully on Facebook, don't play a victim on it too.

In regards to the A vs B, A was actually lamenting about another friend's conflict with his best friend. It has nothing to do with her friendship with B.

And don't you start on "ini semua agenda yahudi untuk menjatuhkan orang Islam..." because you being overly-sensitive and emotional is not nurtured by any yahudi. It's you.