Masih tentang Fangirl #susahmoveon XD

Ternyata Rainbow Rowell juga alumni NaNoWriMo, dan hasil NaNoWriMo-nya adalah Fangirl ('Anna and The French Kiss' dari Stephanie Perkins juga hasil NaNoWriMo XD)

Dear Writer,
I was very skeptical about NaNoWriMo at first.
It seemed like something that amateur writers would do. Or young writers. People who needed to be tricked into finishing their books. I’d already written two books by October 2011, and sold them to publishers, and I couldn’t imagine writing either of them—or anything good—in a month.
That’s not writing, I thought, that’s just piling up words.
But then I thought about how wonderful it would be to have a pile of 50,000 words…
Maybe some writers enjoy the first draft—the part of the writing process when anything is possible, and you’re out there forging your own path. I hate that part. All I can think about when I’m starting a book are all the words I haven’t written yet. I actually feel them, hanging around my neck, tugging at me. First drafts always make me feel anxious and a little desperate—like, “Oh God, I just need to get all of this out and on paper, so that I have something to work with.”
I like having something to work with.
That’s why I eventually decided to try NaNoWriMo—to fast-forward through that desperate, blank-page phase and get to the good stuff. I told myself that it didn’t matter if my first draft was bad. All my books have required major revisions, anyway. And even if NaNoWriMo was a complete waste of time—if I ended up with a chaotic mess—a month isn’t much time to waste. (Not compared to the five years I worked on my first novel before showing it to anyone.)
Maybe because my expectations were low, I didn’t have a detailed strategy for the month: I took a few days off work, and warned my husband and kids that I was going to be gone a lot until Thanksgiving. And I set three goals:

• To write every day.
• To write at least 2,000 words every day.
• And—this was crucial for me—to keep moving forward.

Normally I start each writing session by rewriting whatever I wrote in my last session. With Fangirl, my NaNoWriMo project, I picked up wherever I’d left off and kept moving. I never looked back.
What I noticed right away was how easy it was for me to pick up. One of my challenges as an author is staying inside the fictional world I’m creating. I have to write in blocks (at least four hours at a time, at least four days in a row) to make any progress. During NaNoWriMo, I never left the world of the book long enough to lose momentum.
I stayed immersed in the story all month long, and that made everything come so much smoother than usual. I got a much quicker grasp on the main characters and their voices. The plotlines shot forward…
I mean, I still didn’t know whether what I’d written was any good. (I hadn’t even read it all in one piece!) But I was so excited about the novel, I wanted to write every day. And even when I wasn’t writing, my brain was still working on the story.
So… I didn’t actually finish my book that November. I met the word goal, but was only about halfway done with Fangirl. I continued working on it through January, then did a pretty heavy rewrite the next spring. Here’s something that really shocked me during my revisions: I kept almost every word I wrote during NaNoWriMo.
That 50,000-word pile I made wasn’t a mess at all. It’s some of the bravest writing I’ve ever done, and it includes my all-time favorite character, a guy I think I would’ve second-guessed to death under normal circumstances. NaNoWriMo helped me push past so many of my doubts and insecurities and bad habits. And I think that’s partly why I love Fangirl so much now—because I remember how swept away I felt when I was writing it.
Pretty neat trick.
Rainbow

Tetiba jadi semangat nulis. Hihi. Entah bisa melampaui 50K atau tidak, tapi akan berusaha atau mati dalam berusaha #apasih

Kemarin ada yang kelewat saat review. Yaitu, saat Cath (atau Wren, atau keduanya) mau pulang ke Omaha dari Lincoln.

Kenapa begitu susahnya mereka dapet kendaraan untuk pulang ya? Mesti nunggu ada yang mau pulang dan mereka bisa numpang. Atau seperti saat Arthur Avery masuk rumah sakit dan Cath ingin bergegas pulang, terpaksa nelepon Levi, dan mereka pergi ke Omaha naik truk-nya.

Kenapa sebegitu susahnya sih? Apa enggak ada kendaraan umum dari Lincoln ke Omaha?

Anakku kuliah di Jatinangor, kost di sana, dan dia pulang kapan dia suka. Dari sana bisa pakai Damri--Damrinya ada yang AC ada yang enggak--bisa pakai angkot yang ganti-ganti jurusan, bisa pakai travel. Bisa ikut mobil Abah kalau pas jam si Abah ngajar (seringnya sih dia menyesuaikan jam pulang sama jam Abah selesai ngajar, biar bisa ikut pulang, hihi) Tapi pokoknya, kendaraan umum banyak. Malah konon ada wacana untuk menghidupkan kembali kereta api Jatinangor. Dan denger-denger, jika monorail jadi dibangun di Bandung, jalur yang pertama dibangun adalah jalur Gedebage-Tanjungsari, berarti melewati Jatinangor.

Berarti kendaraan umum itu bukan masalah.

Kemudian jadi inget obrolan dulu kala sama Abah. Amerika ini negara besar, jalan-jalannya besar-besar, mobil-mobil yang mereka bikin juga gede-gede (nggak seperti mobil-mobil Eropa atau Jepang yang rata-rata kompak). Tapi kebijakan lalulintasnya mendukung ke arah agar setiap individu punya kendaraan sendiri. Sudah sering kita membaca dalam novel, atau mendengar/melihat dalam televisi, cita-cita remaja Amerika adalah: umur 18 tahun keluar dari rumah, mencari pekerjaan, menabung untuk beli mobil! Jadi kebijakan yang mendukung agar rakyat Amerika itu naik kendaraan umum itu nggak populer.

Beda dengan di Eropa, di mana orang terbiasa naik kendaraan umum. Orang yang naik kendaraan pribadi itu biasanya benar-benar kaya, atau punya kedudukan tertentu, pokoknya sedikit lah. Demikian juga di Jepang, di Korea, di Singapur... Kendaraan umumnya bersih dan tepat waktu. Kepala Stasiun di Jepang terkenal akan permintaan maaf mereka jika kereta terlambat satu menit! Apalagi kalau lebih!

...dan di negara kita tercinta ini, yang ditumbuhkan adalah kebiasaan orang Amerika: tiap orang punya kendaraan sendiri. Bukan kebiasaan orang Eropa atau Jepang/Korea/Singapur. Berasa punya negara besar, berasa punya banyak cadangan minyak, berasa punya duit banyak (duit sendiri bukan hasil ngutang).

Yah. Begitulah XD