THE SELF-OBSESSED TRIVIA: Things you should know about...

Hi, gaisss (dengan suara Khairul Aming).

I know I promised I will do this in October, and this is already 20th October, so let's get into it. (Makcik dah tua, dah tak reti nak tulis intro panjang2. (For more self-obsessed trivia for other novels, click on the label at the end of the post). Hence...

1. Petrichor ditulis pada pertengahan tahun 2022. It started sometime in 2021, but I abandoned it (as I always do), and then one day one of Alaf's editors, Kak Awin called dan kata Alaf nak novel baru. "Sila hantar manuskrip." Mind you, selama ni makcik tak pernah diberi deadline eh, sebab tu novel aku keluar tiga tahun sekali... ahahaha. I started writing it again while attending PBAKL 2022. Usually aku boleh je menulis di rumah, tapi kali ni, I know I wouldn't be able to do it what with my parents calling my name every minute of every day, so I took a week off translation work, packed my bags, and spent a week di Hotel Seri Pacific KL on my own, trying to finish a manuscript. In the end aku cuma berjaya tulis 80 pages, and the rest of it I had to do at home in the end at 3AM every day for four straight months. So, in short, takyahlah mengada2 nak book hotel untuk tulis novel kekonon. Alasan.

2. Tajuk original, as in working title is "Bintang & Kentang". Editor ai masa tu Kak Awin sangatlah tak berkenan dengan tajuk tu. Ahahahaha. It sounds stupid, I know, but it's because Bintang itu di langit, way up high, dan Kentang duduk dalam tanah, way down. It marks the difference between kedudukan Haque di mata orang ramai dan kedudukan Jamie. In the end Shida (the editor who ended up editing the manuscript) chose Petrichor, which is one of my suggested title. Why Petrichor? Sebab the story is as much Jamie's story as it is Sameera. She finds her Petrichor by being HIS Petrichor. Other suggested titles include "Zuhal & Jupiter", as well as "Sameera Ad Astra".

3. Nama Haque Zuhal memang inspired by Bruno Mars, sebab aku nak nama yang paling over-the-top artithhhhh. It was SUPPOSED to be extremely annoying. Meanwhile, I chose nama Dahlia Everett based on how many Pan Asian actresses we have, like Anna Jobling, Amelia Henderson, Zahirah McWilson as well as how many other artistes guna nama Inggeris dalam nama diorang even though diorang bukan Pan Asian pun. ahahaha. But no, I did not use them as inspiration for the character. That would be unfair to them, since they did nothing wrong. I was just using the fact that we have a lot of Pan Asian actresses now, so the logical thing is to have another one. (Disclaimer: Masa tu saya tidak tahu kewujudan Dahlia Rizal. Makcik bukan tengok TV atau socmed sangat.)

4. Just like all of my other novels where I use names of important women in Islam sebagai nama watak utama, this time, nama Sameera comes from Sameera Moussa, who is... eh baca sendirilah kat SINI. Meanwhile, nama Jamie comes from my love for Jaime Lannister (THE BOOK NOT THE SERIES), whom I think, in essence, is a product of Cersei's abuse and manipulation. Sebab tu kengkadang aku sendiri terkonpius dengan ejaan nama Jamie tu.

Book Jaime Lannister is a victim of abuse. You can't change my mind!

5. Jamie muncul awal as an inside joke with my older readers, sebab readers who have been with me since day one selalu bising kata aku suka letak hero hujung2, dan tak puas dgn babak diorang. ha hamik, makcik letak di bab pertama. ahahahaha.

6.  While tak pernah alami any kind of abuse myself, I relied to some friends and several cases of abuse that I have read or watch (makcik sesungguhnya kaki tengok crime shows) untuk create Jamie's way of dealing with it. Dalam filem, selalu sangat orang kena abuse ni menangis la apa lah. But in truth, people who are abused or have trauma taught themselves to keep their emotion inside. Most of them either tell their story with no emotion in their face, atau in some cases, they joke about it, because joking is the only way they know how to cope. Most of the time they "go away" atau "go deep into themselves" as they share their story. I wanted to be as legit in expressing it as I can.

I thought I was being creative, 
turns out, there is a restaurant that sells
rendang ravioli called Shells Artisan Foods

7. The hardest part of writing this book is not researching abuse. Yang tu banyak references boleh guna. Yang susah ialah mereka cipta hidangan fusion dan mereka cipta produk untuk sebuah kampeni jual kari. I have never seen a rendang ravioli before. I just made that up. But then as I was writing the book, I found out, ehhhh ada rupa2nya chef yang pernah create rendang ravioli. Whad'ya know. 

8. As usual, macam dalam novel2 lain, ada watak novel lama muncul dalam novel kali ini, and this time it is Fish, and it is suitable memandangkan in Uncle Bos Mama, Fish's sister was also a victim of abuse, so she would have the most knowledge about it. 

9.  "Seorang ibu adalah pertahanan akhir seorang anak" was the words from my best friend Munira while we were discussing about another friend's brother. The whole point of the line was that even when the world doesn't believe you and think you are the villain, your mum should be the only person who would defend you to the bitter end. Meanwhile, "Power doesn't corrupt, it reveals" is not my actual words. It's political writer Robert Caro's words. The long version of it is:

10. I enjoyed the most emulating things like komen2 netizen terpaling, because it's verrry typical. All you need to do is go to Instagram artis/influencer yang kau rasa paling selalu kena kecam, and then you emulate the comments. 

11. The restaurant where Sameera first met Jamie is actually in SS15 Subang Jaya. They have these Korean tables (kau kena bersila) and ada tirai yang tutup untuk bagi ko privacy. It is called K-Street, but sadly it has permanently closed. I missed their bibimbap so muchhhhh. 

They have these seating areas with curtains for privacy

12. Despite Sameera's love of Korean food, I have to make a disclaimer here. I. Was. Not. Inspired. By. Any. Korean. Drama. The last modern Korean drama I watched was "The Producer". The last period drama I watched was "Kingdom". It is slightly irritating for me when people think I am inspired by some Korean drama... because this is how I originally am. This is how I have been writing my book since my first book was published in 2007. This has always been the kind of stories I tell since 2007. I was just not very well-known. That's all. Ahahaha.

13. This is an inflatable dinosaur costume 👇. Thank you.

14. People asked me why Sameera acts how she acts after being dumped. It's because she's 35 and I am 40. If you want a more vengeful character, let me introduce you to Wulan of "3 Hati", a 27-year-old character I wrote when I was 29. You must love her. She pours petrol into a diesel tank. That's how petty she is. Ahaha. And if you ask me why Jamie acts the way he acts, let me introduce to you the MEN ABUSED BY WOMEN booklet.

Wulan is the epitome of petty revenge

15. When I wrote PETRICHOR, the plan was for it to be the final novel I would write. I thought, I wouldn't care what people would say about it. I was ready to "clock out". I thought that 16 years would be enough for me, because writing has not been fruitful anymore. It takes a lot of time and it pays almost nothing. And with my dad's health situation, I didn't think that it would be right for me to use my free time to write a book instead of doing jobs that pay better. Little did I know that it would go viral, and got picked up by a producer in the second month of its release. It was almost funny to think about it. I am thankful, of course. But at the same time like, "Really? Really, universe?"

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