"An Unemployed Person"

People used to say, if you love your job, then you don’t have to work a day in your life. That is what I am now. As a writer, an author, I don’t feel like I work at all. To me, writing is just as much fun as videogaming, movie-watching, mountainclimbing, parasailing, bungeejumping, or whatever great activities you could mention.

And moreover, I don’t work in the sense that I have to go to the office every single day from Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM everyday. Eversince I left Gradasi teens magazine in October 2010, I never had any intention of going back to some office or company as someone else’s subordinate or colleague. I have had enough of all of these crazy stupid office-politics I have to deal with every single moment back then when I was still an employee.

Now my daily routines include no high profile “active” and outward things at all people could mistakenly thought that I was an unemployment. It’s no wonder, considering that I usually stay all day in my rented room (Indonesian calls it with the term “rumah kost”) at Tembalang District, Semarang, the capital of Central Java Province. An then, on weekends, I go to my mom’s house at Borobudur, at a small rural village called Gedongan (“gedong” in Javanese languange means big house) near the world-famous Borobudur Temple.

But that is the way a writer works to make a living. Not with some hard and difficult activities that could occasionally turned dangerous, but just by fingers and thoughts and imagination. Our primary tool is only a computer, a notebook, a netbook, or a typewriter back in those good old days when we used to hear those terrible little noise when someone is typing something. And our magic secret weapons are just determination and consistency.

I still remember clearly when I first fell in love with books and especially novels. It was in 1985, when I turned 14. I was in junior high school at SMP 20 Semarang and enrolled into a special service by Semarang City’s State Public Library called Perling or Perpustakaan Keliling (mobile-library). Every Wednesday afternoon, my kid brother and I will go to a yard of Taman Indrya kindergarten near our old house at Genuk Indah and wait for the blue van of Perling to arrive.

And then, we’re all going crazy with the books the van brought. It was a wonderful atmosphere back then, to see racks of good books by Agatha Christie, Enid Blyton, Arswendo Atmowiloto or Alistair MacLean which we can borrow in the span of a week with only Rp 50 ($ 10-cent with current inflation rate) each. Then I knew that my life was about to abruptly change. And I dropped every grown-up-wishes I have (Indonesian calls it “cita-cita”) to become a novel writer—an author.

Now, two and a half decades later, I am an author. Not with the level of fame JK Rowling and Dan Brown has—not yet—but this is me, with 10 novels, 3 short stories anthologies, 1 non-fiction book, and counting. To me, miracle is when what we dreamed for could turned into reality that you can actually smell, touch, hear, or taste. And I think I’m somewhat fortunate to have one of those in my tiny short lifetime.

All of my novels are published by Kompas Gramedia, the biggest publication company in Indonesia through two of its subsidiary companies, PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama and PT Elex Media Komputindo. Eight of those ten fall into a genre which is called Teenlit or teen literature. It’s basically novels for teens, from 12 to 21 years old. The other two are from a genre called Metropop, for mature women aged 25-40 years old.

My latest two books are www.gombel.com and Bukan Cupid (He’s Not Cupid). The first one is a mystery-thriller story about an internet site which contains ghost and horror stories that started to terrorize its users. Some of them experience horrifying incidents such as saw ghost apparition, heard mysterious unexplainable noise, or even brutally possessed they have to be locked at mental institutions for their own safety.

It was published by Elex Media and released at December 14, 2011. This was my first horror novel to date. The cover was so intriguingly scary so that some of its readers couldn’t bear of even see it at nighttime. They have the nerve to read the book only at daytime. And when night falls, they change the book to some ordinary sweet love stories that end happily ever after!

My newest book, which was published by Gramedia Pustaka Utama (GPU) at February 14, 2012, is Bukan Cupid. It is an anthology of Valentine-Day’s-themed short stories, my collaboration with 13 other famous Teenlit authors. Those authors, in alphabetical order, are Antonius Andrie, Christina Juzwar, Erlin Cahyadi, Esi Lahur, Irena Tjiunata, Janita Jaya, Lea Agustina Citra, Monica Petra, Nora Umres, Pricillia AW, Sophie Maya, Teresa Bertha, and Valleria Verawati.

On Saturday, February 11, we held book launching and meet and greet at Gramedia Bookstore, Jalan Matraman, Jakarta. The event was hosted by the famous Boim Lebon of the “Lupus family” from the series Lupus by Hilman. All of the 14 authors attend the event, except Erlin, Monica, and Nora. It was soon followed by other meet and greet gala at Kompas Gramedia Fair at the Istora Senayan on Sunday March 4, but at that time I couldn’t make it to the event due some shedule clash.

On the same day, Nora, Sophie, and I held a similar event, a talk show at Waroeng Taman Singosari at Jalan Sriwijaya, Semarang, about the book Bukan Cupid and another short stories compilation entitled Suburban Love by our dear friend, Catastrova Prima. Unlike Bukan Cupid which was published by a giant publication house, Suburban Love was published independently through a minor publication company, Nulisbuku.Com.

Now I’m in the middle of preparing a nonfiction book about two idol groups from South Korea, Super Junior and Girls’ Generation. It will be published by Elex Media somewhere at May. And hopefully, not very far from now, I will have my newest Metropop novel, Fade In/Fade Out, out to the market to become my 11th novel.

Cersil

One of the most popular genre of novels in Indonesia is the “cerita silat” (cersil) or martial art story. It is based on Indonesia’s traditional martial art discipline, the “pencak silat” or simply “silat”, hence the name. The cersil flourished since early 20th century, and heavily influenced by wuxia novels or kung fu novels from China.

Like the knights stories in Europe, both cersil and wuxia novels present the stories about warriors, kings, heroes, warlords, hermits, and beautiful princesses, with historic events from ancient and medieval age to colonialism era in 18th and 19th century as a background to the whole story. Some has fantasy and mythology elements such as gods, spirits, heavenly creatures, monsters, dwarfs, witches, or demons.

What makes cersil different from other form of stories about history and ancient heroes is that it always tells characters that have masterful and sometimes superhuman skills in pencak silat. Someone who mastered the highest skill of the pencak silat is called “pendekar” or the warrior.

A good pendekar must preserve justice and rightousness to help others with his or her silat knowledge. The good ones will have to deal with endless and deadly challenge from the villains, which also have similar level of skill in silat with the good pendekars. The good ones usually called “pendekar golongan putih” or white warriors, while their counterparts are called “pendekar golongan hitam” or dark warriors.

It is the fights and clashes between the goods and the bads that makes cersil so appealing to its fanatic readers. While on duel, both parties exchange their own deadly fists which is called the “jurus” to kill or disable each other. The fights sometimes end with cruel and horrifying dead since most fights are accompanied with deep hatred and years of dreadful revenge. Love could also triggers deadly clashes as well.

One of the most prominent cersil characters in Indonesia is Mahesa Jenar from the giant novel “Nagasasra Sabuk Inten” by Indonesia’s greatest cersil author, the late SH Mintardja. Jenar is a master of silat, who’s after his retirement from the Kingdom of Demak army in mid 16th century Java, begins his long juurney to search the palace’s lost treasures, the kris Nagasasra (which means One Thousand Dragons) and the kris Sabuk Inten (Diamonds Belt).

During his journey, Jenar (Mahesa Jenar is an ancient Javanese name/phrase which literally means The Yellow Bull) must face the oppositions from supervillains such as Lowo Ijo (Green Bat), Sepasang Uling (Pair of Snakes), and the legendary Pasingsingan. If the condition become critical and he involves in life-threatening situation, Jenar must release his ultimate fist, the Sasrabirawa (One Thousand Demons), to end the opponent’s challenge.

Each pendekar like Jenar has his or her own unique deadly fist as a secret and ultimate weapon against enemies. Such power comes from special element in the body called the “tenaga dalam” or inner-self strength. It’s similar to superpower strength and special feat in superhero characters from comic books such as Spider-Man, Batman, or Superman. The tenaga dalam gives each pendekar their superhuman abilities to fight enemies and defend themselves.

Besides Mintardja, Indonesia has plenty of excellent cersil authors with outstanding talent like Asmaraman S Kho Ping Hoo, Widi Widayat, and Herman Pratikto. The famous contemporary novelist Arswendo Atmowiloto once wrote cersil novel entitled Senopati Pamungkas or The Final Warlord which garnered high critical reception from critics and readers as well.

I also once wrote a cersil. It is called Menuju Matahari (Towards the Sun) which was published in Suara Merdeka Daily Newspaper in Semarang, Central Java, from August 1997 to July 1998. It tells the story of one young and handsome warrior named Wisnumurti and his two best friends, Jaladri and Bajul Kuning.

The three of them tried to unravel the mystery that surround the tragic death of Prince Samodra, an ex general of the Sultanate of Pasir who lives in a hill called the Manyar Mount with his family. The prince and all of his family members was brutally massacred by a group of unknown warriors 20 years earlier. Later investigation shows that the recent Sultan of Pasir is probably masterminded the massacre.

Right now I’m in the middle of a process to convert the story into a full-length cersil novel, which hopefully can be published in 2011. During the process, i feature it as a serial in my Facebook page, Wien’s World. You can read it down there. But for the moment, it only available in Bahasa Indonesia version. So international audiences will have to wait until it has been completely translated to English before the story can be released internationally, which I hope can be done very soon.