For more Self-Obsessed Trivia, click on the tag below...
1. UNCLE BOS MAMA was written during one of the toughest period of my life... dealing with dad's chronic kidney disease and becoming his official carer, losing one of my freelance jobs (which means a loss of income), dealing with anxiety, etc. It was similar to when I was writing AKU KAN NOVELIS, which came while I was dealing with a court case and another loss of job and mild depression. I guess losing a source of income and emotional instability always leads to a book?
7. I never said Joshua was Chinese. I never mentioned his last name, or whether he could be a Christian or a Buddhist if he ever was religious, or his features dan warna kulit. Tujuannya sebab aku nak tengok bila aku create character yang tak ada bangsa dan agama, apa yang readers akan fikir. Tapi ramai yang sangka Joshua Chinese kerana dia dari Penang. Ada yang bagi reason sebab bapak dia ada kilang and business empire and usually bangsa cina sahaja yang banyak buat bisnes dan ada kilang sendiri. Isn't that interesting, how we kinda link one thing to another like that? In my mind, Joshua was never Chinese. He was never Indian, Bugis, or Caucasian. He's just Joshua. Mungkin mak dia Kadazandusun dan bapak dia half Mamak half British for all I know. Haha.
12. Balkis dan Apis Milo played a prominent part in this book because... I have a soft spot for the two of them sebab PLAIN JANE adalah novel pertama di mana editor bagi aku ruang untuk be as creative as I want as a storyteller, membolehkan aku jumpa aku punya trademark dalam penulisan. Do they only have one kid? Yes. Why? Sometimes people just do.
13. Nama Shaina Shairil dan Shaila bukan ilham datang dari nama gelaran aku SHAI. I just wanted to make this whole thing where Fish and Josh called them "Adik Beradik Shai-tan". But then my editor was like "Absolutely not!"... so... Nama penuh Shaila ialah Shaila Ain. It was never mentioned because there was no reason to mention her full name, unlike Shaina Amani (in that chapter where she told Joshua to name his kid Amani instead of Shaina) and Shairil Azim (in that chapter where the school called Fish about his accident).
14. The name Naila Farafisha is of course a part of the tradition where I named all my female protagonists by the name of wanita2 dalam Islam. Naila Al-Farafishah was Uthman bin Affan's wife who.... eh baca sendirilah sejarah dia. And my group of pals from school, we like to call ourselves the Farafishahs, and kekonon kalau ada anak perempuan nak bagi nama Nailah Farafishah. Beranganla kau di situ.... As for Joshua.... it just came out of my head and refused to be renamed. I have no other reason for him to be named Joshua. I know the origin of the name Joshua, and yet even when I tried to change it, my brain won't let it. So we got stuck with Joshua. Oh and the name Elanne was taken from that Hong Kong actress Elanne Kong. I don't know why. Sometimes my brain wants something, and I just be like, "Okay fine!"
15. Asalnya setiap chapter ikut point of view Joshua atau Fish dan setiap bab bermula dengan nama diorang (for example - Bab 1 - JOSHUA. Bab 2 - FISH). It was significant as the only person who has POV chapters are the two of them except for one chapter, near the end, where I put SHAINA as the POV character to signify how it all came together. Tapi mungkin benda tu annoying untuk dimasukkan bila publisher reka tataletak, so in the end POV tu hilang.
16. I know for a fact ada vending machine jual larva tebuan dan belalang dalam tin di Inokashira Park di Jepun kerana aku pernah tengok video YouTube Safiya Nygaard about it. Hahahaha.
19. One more thing, selain Balkis n Apis, as usual mcm yg aku buat dengan novel2 lain, aku masukkan watak novel lain dalam UBM. This time Kat dan FU from Awak Sungguh Perfect. See if u can find the easter egg.
2. I saw this photo
Somehow I thought that Brienne of Tarth being a "guardian" to the three Stark kids is funny, so I decided to write a story about a single woman who has to take care of three children... and then I was like, why three? Let's do four! It also is a change from my previous stories about women needing to be strong. Fish is already a strong woman. It is established from the start. It's "I am already a strong independent woman. What then?"
3. Fish's job was my first job at CINEMA ONLINE. I was an admin assistant who was part receptionist part secretary whose job was attending to people coming to the office, ordering food or booking venues for my boss Marcel, buat invois dan purchase order, follow-up payment, tolong Kak Ani uruskan cheques, urus subscription, dan sebagainya (termasuk betulkan flush jamban and pasang starter lampu) before I moved to partly-editorial-partly-marketing. Ahahahaha. But Marcel is no Joshua though. That would be disturbing in a lot of ways. In a way, even the whole office (kecuali bahagian luar dan parking) kinda inspired by CO's layout masa aku masih kerja kat sana.
3. Fish's job was my first job at CINEMA ONLINE. I was an admin assistant who was part receptionist part secretary whose job was attending to people coming to the office, ordering food or booking venues for my boss Marcel, buat invois dan purchase order, follow-up payment, tolong Kak Ani uruskan cheques, urus subscription, dan sebagainya (termasuk betulkan flush jamban and pasang starter lampu) before I moved to partly-editorial-partly-marketing. Ahahahaha. But Marcel is no Joshua though. That would be disturbing in a lot of ways. In a way, even the whole office (kecuali bahagian luar dan parking) kinda inspired by CO's layout masa aku masih kerja kat sana.
You can say that KUACI MEDIA was my love letter to CINEMA ONLINE of some sort.
Small trivia: My favourite job was picking contest winners.
4. I was also inspired by my friend Masitah, who single-handedly raised her three boys sambil bekerja, buat bisnes, layan anak bersukan, etc. I don't think I could ever do what she does. I don't think I am strong enough.
5. I was listening to Postmodern Jukebox version of Beauty and the Beast while writing Chapter 53. If u dunno, PMJ is this YouTube channel and band that covers pop songs, tapi diorang nyanyi semula dengan jukebox version. Truth be told, I had been listening to a lot of PMJ while writing the book. My favourite song that they covered include "Creep", "Juice", "Toxic" and "All of Me". I actually listened to "All of Me" while writing Joshua's confession to Fish about wanting her to be greedy. And I was listening to Beauty & The Beast while writing that scene of them in the car after the karaoke.
6. KUACI.com adalah antara nama yang suggested bila Cinema Online nak buat website pasal wayang dalam versi BM (Cinema Online was in English). It was proposed by another one of our bosses Vinsen, sebab katanya kuaci adalah snek pilihan bila tgk movie pada zaman dulu (dan pilihan snek bila tgk TV), dan semua kaum - whether it be Malays, Chinese, or Indians - think kuaci as their staple snack. In the end we used TUPAI instead (sekarang website ni dah tak wujud dah). But in my mind, I have always loved the whole notion of KUACI bringing races together.
7. I never said Joshua was Chinese. I never mentioned his last name, or whether he could be a Christian or a Buddhist if he ever was religious, or his features dan warna kulit. Tujuannya sebab aku nak tengok bila aku create character yang tak ada bangsa dan agama, apa yang readers akan fikir. Tapi ramai yang sangka Joshua Chinese kerana dia dari Penang. Ada yang bagi reason sebab bapak dia ada kilang and business empire and usually bangsa cina sahaja yang banyak buat bisnes dan ada kilang sendiri. Isn't that interesting, how we kinda link one thing to another like that? In my mind, Joshua was never Chinese. He was never Indian, Bugis, or Caucasian. He's just Joshua. Mungkin mak dia Kadazandusun dan bapak dia half Mamak half British for all I know. Haha.
8. Originally, I planned to have the story be about Joshua tolong selesaikan kes kakak Fish dan help get her out of prison. But that would take ratusan pages yang tak mungkin editor aku benarkan, dan a lot of legal terms dan research. I just want Joshua to be someone who can be Fish's ally, and there is a simpler way to show his kindness than the grand gesture of keluarkan someone dari penjara. And it would be much more tragic to see how a woman can end up in misery bila buat pilihan yang salah, and how Fish learned from that to be who she is as a person. It is indeed Fish's story, bukan cerita Hani.
9. While writing the four kids, I spent a lot of time observing and remembering how kids of those age talk. Shairil was supposed to be more mature than his age disebabkan tragedi yang berlaku padanya, so that's why he doesn't sound 13. Shaina... I just observe my younger cousins Hazirah dan Shazrina (dan how Hazirah usually bergaduh dengan adiknya Ejal). Faiq, I tried to remember Erfaan dan Adam - the sons of one of my best friend and how they were during that age. As for Lala, who seems to be everyone's favourite... she was based on my neighbour's kid named Alisya, yang selalu bergaduh dengan another one of my neighbour's kid Muqrie. She was that kind of kid.
10. Tajuk asal UNCLE BOS MAMA was........ Joshua & Keluarga Fish......
Because I suck.
11. This is Fish's house di Kelana Jaya. I mean, when I describe it, it's similar to this. Tak ada sebarang reason, except for I was looking for a house untuk dijadikan rujukan rumah Fish di area Kelana Jaya, and this house seemed fitting. It seemed like a dream house of a normal family (Hani dan Arif) but became such an annoyance untuk bayaran bulanan for someone like Fish who has a wheelchaired boy staying with her. I even described the tree. Hahaha. Can you imagine Lala climbing the wall to talk to the neighbour next door?
Because I suck.
11. This is Fish's house di Kelana Jaya. I mean, when I describe it, it's similar to this. Tak ada sebarang reason, except for I was looking for a house untuk dijadikan rujukan rumah Fish di area Kelana Jaya, and this house seemed fitting. It seemed like a dream house of a normal family (Hani dan Arif) but became such an annoyance untuk bayaran bulanan for someone like Fish who has a wheelchaired boy staying with her. I even described the tree. Hahaha. Can you imagine Lala climbing the wall to talk to the neighbour next door?
11. I am tired of women being antagonists in love stories (I am also guilty of doing so in the past) sebab tu dalam UBM, tak ada watak perempuan yang jahat. Elanne ada hak untuk marah Joshua and mengamuk disebabkan apa yang Joshua buat.
12. Balkis dan Apis Milo played a prominent part in this book because... I have a soft spot for the two of them sebab PLAIN JANE adalah novel pertama di mana editor bagi aku ruang untuk be as creative as I want as a storyteller, membolehkan aku jumpa aku punya trademark dalam penulisan. Do they only have one kid? Yes. Why? Sometimes people just do.
14. The name Naila Farafisha is of course a part of the tradition where I named all my female protagonists by the name of wanita2 dalam Islam. Naila Al-Farafishah was Uthman bin Affan's wife who.... eh baca sendirilah sejarah dia. And my group of pals from school, we like to call ourselves the Farafishahs, and kekonon kalau ada anak perempuan nak bagi nama Nailah Farafishah. Beranganla kau di situ.... As for Joshua.... it just came out of my head and refused to be renamed. I have no other reason for him to be named Joshua. I know the origin of the name Joshua, and yet even when I tried to change it, my brain won't let it. So we got stuck with Joshua. Oh and the name Elanne was taken from that Hong Kong actress Elanne Kong. I don't know why. Sometimes my brain wants something, and I just be like, "Okay fine!"
15. Asalnya setiap chapter ikut point of view Joshua atau Fish dan setiap bab bermula dengan nama diorang (for example - Bab 1 - JOSHUA. Bab 2 - FISH). It was significant as the only person who has POV chapters are the two of them except for one chapter, near the end, where I put SHAINA as the POV character to signify how it all came together. Tapi mungkin benda tu annoying untuk dimasukkan bila publisher reka tataletak, so in the end POV tu hilang.16. I know for a fact ada vending machine jual larva tebuan dan belalang dalam tin di Inokashira Park di Jepun kerana aku pernah tengok video YouTube Safiya Nygaard about it. Hahahaha.
17. Joshua likes Salmon Quiche kat GLORIA JEAN'S COFFEES sebab itulah benda yang aku beli setiap kali aku kena gi AVISENA utk appointment doktor. You know me. I am that kind of writer.
18. Rumah Joshua was partly inspired by my friend Nadiah's apartment di Dwiputra in Putrajaya, except in my mind it was bigger, darker toned, with wooden tiles and sleek style.
19. One more thing, selain Balkis n Apis, as usual mcm yg aku buat dengan novel2 lain, aku masukkan watak novel lain dalam UBM. This time Kat dan FU from Awak Sungguh Perfect. See if u can find the easter egg.
You can buy your copy of UNCLE BOS MAMA here or whatsapp Abang Long at 019-2254910/Wana at 011-21226461
For more reviews of UNCLE BOS MAMA, read here
