Month: November 2015

Bangkit | Beyond the story and short movie.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

If you are one of my Facebook/Instagram friends, you might know that a short movie adaptation of my short story Bangkit has been released. If you haven’t watched it, here you go

 

 

Original piece :

   Penggera telefon bimbitnya berbunyi. Tangannya mencapai telefon pintar tersebut, dan matanya yang masih berat dibuka. “Eh, subuh kan habis!” teriaknya dalam hati dengan mulut yang terlopong. Hilang berterbangan segala rasa mengantuk yang membelenggu tadi. 15 minit kemudian dia selesai bersolat. Dia kembali ke katil, duduk bersimpuh, lalu dia mencapai naskhah Al-Quran serta tafsir berwarna biru kesayangannya yang diletakkan di atas meja kecil di tepi katilnya. Dia mula membaca.

    Dia cuma membaca satu mukasurat, lalu dia membaca tafsir ayat-ayat yang dibacanya tadi. Namun perasaannya kosong. Hatinya tidak mampu merasa getaran seperti yang dirasakannya seperti selalu ketika membaca ayat-ayat Allah. Kusut. Kosong. Serabut. Entah sudah berapa lama dia merasa begitu.

     Naskhah kecil itu kembali diletakkan di atas meja. Hawa yang dingin menambah daya tarikan kepada katil yang sedia empuk. Dia kembali berbaring lalu selimut tebal dan lembut ditarik menutup seluruh tubuhnya. Dia mengiring menghadap dinding. Dinding berwarna hijau itu direnungnya tanpa berkedip. Fikirannya menerawang.

     Tidak keterlaluan jika dikatakan dia sudah hilang arah dalam hidup. Semangat jihadnya yang berkobar dulu kini layu dan kaku. Dia tidak pasti di manakah dia tersilap langkah, namun apa yang pasti kini dia telah rebah. Dia mengeluh. Tangannya mencengkam selimut yang semakin membalut kemas badannya. Dia menangis tanpa air mata.

     Dia beralih posisi, dan di hadapan matanya Al-Quran birunya melambai-lambai. Dengan longlai, tangannya mencapai Al-Quran itu, dan sambil dia berbaring jarinya membuka lembaran demi lembaran dan akhirnya terhenti di Surah Al-Mudathir. Dia membaca dua ayat pertama.

      Dia bangkit, dan selimutnya dilipat kemas. Dia menghela nafas baru.

 

Bangkit is one of my works for The iRead iWrite project, whereby every week, participants were required to send their writings according to the set weekly theme. I only managed to send 3 out of 4 required piece of writing, two of them, including Bangkit are short stories and the other one is a non-fiction.

The idea of developing Bangkit into a short movie began around a month after my last summer break started. I felt like I needed to do something productive and I got the idea of turning one piece from my short stories collection (no I don’t have a lot, to be honest) into a short movie. So I discussed with a friend of mine who has a connection with Momentteller.bn on collaborating and Alhamdulillah, the suggestion was well-received and a short meeting was held to discuss about the movie adaptation. In roughly a month, it’s up on Vimeo for viewing. The movie adaptation is 90% work of Momentteller including the script.

Personal Thoughts

I found joy in writing fictions. Despite of not taking it seriously, whenever I got to write stories (mostly during exams and to practice for exam) I always got carried away. A seed of idea grew wildly as soon as my pen touched the paper and my hand would move fluently until the last quarter of exam hour. Unfortunately I was, at that time, oblivious to the impact a writing could have to its reader. I didn’t realise that the emotion game played by a composition could be very strong. But unfortunately, the love I had for writing wasn’t nurtured as it deserved to be, and I admit that was my fault.

I slowly left writing due to some reasons (a few can be found here at no.1) and after regaining myself again (and a laptop) I decided to start blogging again, which was my main medium to share my writing and I also decided to join the national story-writing competition and after winning the first place, I started to remember the compliments – that I took as mere compliments, I received from my teachers for my writings and I realised that I could make good use of this talent to spread goodness. After a long period of ignorance I came back to my senses. I finally found the reason to live in this dunya. I found Allah. I found out that Allah is not just a god for the Muslims. Allah is the only God and there are no god other than Him. I finally knew that my purpose to live in this world is to serve Him.  As His servant I realised that it is my responsibility to spread His words in whatever way I could, and writing is what I’m capable of.

Back to Bangkit.

It was actually spontaneous. As the deadline for submission was nearing, I couldn’t think of anything to write. Coincidentally, I was at one of my lowest points when things weren’t just feeling right and all I could think of was cuddling in my bed and spend the whole day sleeping. But at the same time I knew that I had a huge responsibility on my shoulders that I couldn’t put down whenever I please.

I needed a motivation.

I needed a hard slap on my face with a chair.

And who could slap you better than His words?

No one.

So I started looking for something in Quran.

Thus, Bangkit was penned, in the hope that it could slap me and everyone who is in need of one. In the hope to remind myself first and foremost and  those in need of reminder that our difficulty in clinging to the rope of Allah is not a reason to stop striving. I really hope that this humble authorship of mine benefits everyone who comes across it, whoever you are, from whichever walk of life you come from.

Thank you to those who encouraged me to keep going.

May Allah grant us goodness.

 

8 Things To Do If You Want To Stop Writing.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim

image write

(photo)

I strongly believe in the power of writing. Many great ideologies in this world were spread by writing. Karl Marx was working for a newspaper when he began to work out his theories on social and economic activity, and after being exiled he continued to write, published numerous books and his work is now one of the important theories in Sociology  – Marxism. Darwin’s “Origin of Species” is particularly influential in the world of biology, in which his theory up until today is still sparking debates. Ibn Sina “Al- Qanun fi At-Tibb” was the reference for medieval medical practices for centuries. “The Art of Wars” by Sun Tzu has helped leaders like Mao Zhedong and Yamamoto in their respective war.

These are just a few of great examples of how a pen and paper (or in the current day, a computer, papers and printer) are able to shape the world. So I decided to take up writing as a means for me to contribute to the ummah. This decision has connected with other writers. However, I realised that I am WAAAAAAAY better in NOT writing than I am in writing. I am just unbelievably good at it that I feel like I need to share with the world the steps and guidance on how to slow down in or completely stop writing, if you are ever considering it.

  1. Stop reading.

I had the honour of meeting Kak Aisyah Muharikah and I took that opportunity to ask her, “Any tips for writing?” and she said “Read a lot. Writing a book requires reading 3 books.” Reading is important as it develops your perspective and insight, hence giving you more things to say and talk about. I would say I was quite an active blogger back then in 2008-2009 despite of it being mostly the rants of my teenage self (hermergerrd). I read a lot back then, but somehow not long after that I replaced my hobby of reading with other useless activities (and I had problem with computer as well). Only after I managed to detach myself from them I found my strength back in writing, which is still a struggle for me to maintain now. Then I realised a pattern. I write better when I read more. So, to kill your hand and brain ability to write, stop reading.

2. Occupy yourself with useless things.

Distracting yourself with activities such as hours of mindless scrolling on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Ask.fm (Oh, ask me here! hehe) helps a lot. You also have other options like chatting the night away with a friend etc. Do whatever you think is okay, except reading. This is basically to help you do the point above. For best result, do this until you get addicted to it.

3. Don’t have passion.

Passion is what keeps you going. The less passionate you are, the less is your willpower to reach your PC and write something that will blow everyone’s mind. Keep your passion tucked at the very back of your closet and don’t let it break free.

4. Don’t take note of your ideas for new contents.

You will encounter something that sparks your idea for your new content at some points in your daily life. From one event chains of ideas will link together, and out of them you can write something out that is totally cool. Don’t. Jot. Them. Down. Jotting them down will make you remember that you wanted to write something. Leave it unwritten, and wait until it diffused out of your head. By the time you remember that you had these ideas, you won’t remember what they were and the hard time to recall will make you give up.

5. Always keep in mind to impress your readers.

Trying to impress your readers will lead you to putting your best effort in a composition that may or may not be read. This will take up much of your time looking for extravagant words to describe a simple idea, which requires you looking into the dictionary every 5 minutes, and in that 5 minutes approximately a third of it is wasted on arranging the words as complex as yourself. This process is tedious, will slow you down and in the end, will break your perseverance to continue. So please, always, always, always try to impress your readers.

6.  Don’t practise.

Practise makes perfect. Being not good at something increases the possibility of you to stop doing it. Hence, practising is your biggest enemy. To stop writing, one must perceive one’s ability to write as a threat that will make one continue writing. Avoid practising as much as possible.

7. Be too self-conscious on how people would think of you if you published that piece of yours.

“Will people like it?” “Will my friends laugh at me?” “Is it even relevant what I’m talking about?” “What if they think I’m weird?” Always ask yourself these questions. Leave every inch of the space in your mind for self-doubt. Self-confidence is a big NO. Protect yourself from being confident with your opinions.

8. Don’t set time for writing.

Setting aside a portion of your time for something enables you to do it (duh, logic!). Make time for everything, but never for writing. EVER. In the attempt of eliminating writing as a part of your life, this is one of the effective and simplest method.