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?