Continuation from Day 1 .
[Friday, 30 October 2015]
Have Pen, Will Write. 09:00 AM - 10:15 AM. Joglo @ Taman Baca.
Featuring Emma Harrison Clark, Rebecca Harkins-Cross, Tenni Purwanti, Zaky Yamani.
Chaired by Nathan Hollier.
Think writer, think sleep-ins, bottomless pots of coffee and a sack of gold at the end of a literary rainbow? These working writers dish on the reality of making it.
This is one of the most interesting panels that I really enjoyed during UWRF15.
"Is a job fun, challenging, or makes money? If it doesn't make 2 out of 3, don't do it."- Rebecca Harkins-Cross, quoting Benjamin Law
They're talking about how they write and continue to do it; Zaky even talked about what he thought before he published a book. He spent days in the room -- 6 years, if I'm not mistaken, wanting to finish his project yet, in the end, it was rejected. However, he didn't stop there.
The featuring writers gave encouragement with their own notes. The shortest yet most difficult one for me is to choose your own deadline and stick to it.
I'll leave the rest here:
- You have to start somewhere, to move on to the next step.
- I like to challenge myself, to know my borders and how far I can go.
- The first step is to keep reading.
- Writing community is a good choice, to understand how the things work and build social network.
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In Short Order. 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM. Joglo @ Taman Baca.
Featuring Ashok Ferrey, Leopold A Surya Indrawan, Abigail Ulman, Norman Erikson Pasaribu.
Chaired by Joseph Woods.
Short stories have been enjoying their salad days of late. These wordsmiths spill on whether the difficulty is equivalent to the size, and if they’re the way of the future.
I always think short stories have their own charms. When you want to read something good but you want to enjoy the opening and ending right away, short story is indeed the best choice. I think it's fantastic how writers can make interesting short stories, especially since I don't think I'm good in writing short stories.
Here, the panelists read one of their selected short stories and, wow, it's amusing how reading them out loud give lives to the stories. No wonder people who are featured for audio books (should be) are extremely good.
This topic also mentioned about novella, which can be described either as a short novel or a long short story. They agree that it's underrated and, unfortunately, ended up being killed by editor and publisher since novella is neither a novel or a short story, making it difficult to reach the market.
It is nice to note that there is an idea about writing several short stories with different characters, but they're connected to each other in one and another way -- this is a concept that I have thought about but haven't been executed due to my procrastination.
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On A Deadline. 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM. Joglo @ Taman Baca.
Featuring Emma Harrison Clark, Abigail Ulman, M Aan Mansyur, Andina Dwifatma.
Chaired by Sunili Govinnage.
How many words can you churn out a day? And when marks the golden hour of productivity? Four writers share how, when and where they work to ensure they meet the dreaded deadline.
Deadline is something so important for (almost) all tasks in the world. Writer is no exception, unless you write for no reason. Even writing for free, in my opinion, still needs deadline. You don't want to leave your idea to wither somewhere you can't find, do you?
The best advice to answer the question of how to tackle a deadline?
Just write.
Here I will leave the notes I wrote down for this topic. Maybe one will encourage you enough to be grateful of the deadline.
- Writing is the best way to find an answer.
- Let people who understand your topic of writing to read the draft, so that you will know their opinion.
- If you want to be a writer: read anything that you can put your hands on and write until your last breathe.
- It's unrealistic to wait for the good mood to write.
- Pramoedya Ananta Toer even wrote in a prison; was he happy or in a good mood at the moment?
- Your mood can't be an excuse. It's like, if you're a dentist and a patient comes to you with a toothache, can you reject the patient and say, "Sorry, I'm in a bad mood"?
- If something is bothering me, I'll take 10-15 minutes to write it down in a journal, to get rid of the thought.
- I will reward myself if I can finish before deadline.
"Writing is saving someone's life. And that life you're saving can be your own."
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Rights of Ghostwriting. 2:30 PM - 3:45 PM. Joglo @ Taman Baca.
Featuring Emma Harrison Clark, Barbara Epler, Achmad Fawaid.
Chaired by Sam Cooney.
Step behind-the-scenes into the shadowy world of ghostwriting. Where are the boundaries drawn in terms of creative freedom and ownership?
Ghostwriting has always been an interesting topic for me. To be honest, during the same time, I also wanted to attend the session of "Passport To..." but I decided to stay for this, as Emma Harrison Clark gained my attention ever since the morning.
She is a ghostwriter and I like the way she communicates, how she talks and answers. It's really interesting. Plus I honestly think she's pretty! She reminds me of Keira Knightley in a glimpse.
So, talking about ghostwriting, it did talk a bit about being a ghostwriter in Indonesia is not an easy one. People who use ghostwriter are usually politicians or actors/actresses who want to write a biography about their life stories. In several cases, it is really possible for someone to share an idea and hire a ghostwriter to turn the idea into the story. However, of course, the rule is the ghostwriter stays as a 'ghost'.
Why do I find it always interesting? Because there are people who write behind the shadow and, to be honest, I want to try that. That way I can hear people's honest opinion about my writing rather than I have my own name as the writer and people will probably be nice (if they do know me). Yet again, ghostwriting is different from pseudonym.
There's a question about how a ghostwriter get hired if they're supposed to stay as 'ghost'. Emma answered that the most effective advertising, as usual, is through recommendation. "When you have more experience, more people will approach you," she said.
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Don't Quit Your Day Job. 4PM - 5PM. Joglo @ Taman Baca.
Featuring Graeme Simsion, Adimas Immanuel, Ashok Ferrey, Isa Kamari.
Chaired by Gill Westaway.
It’s a quip that strikes fear into all creatives. But what if your 9 to 5 actually fuels your process? Get the inside story from those who manage the work-work balance.
It's in this session that I heard about the same statement, about being a writer can't be a job for living. I'm not sure whether it's a fact that can't be changed or an unsatisfying situation.
Anyway, this is also one of my favorite topics! I picked this one right away, as soon as I saw the topic. Why? Because as much as I love to write (and read), I actually work as an SAP Consultant (you can say IT consultant to make it easier), something that is so contrary from my writing passion.
It's a lie if I say that I never thought of being a writer means staying in a room and just writer. No other jobs, nothing else but me, myself, and idea to write. I remind myself that having another job is also something good but, well, we need encouragement (and reminders) sometimes, don't we?
Like how they discussed about how your day job can actually help you in writing. This, people, I agree. Since you meet new people and have new surroundings, you gain idea as well. I do this most of the times!
Here are some notes I have from this session:
- If you have all the times of the world, you will have all the excuses to not write.
- Even if you don't have a job, would you be sitting down and writing for 24/7 then?
- Writing is like a therapy for me.
"I write because I need to write."- Isa Kamari
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Poetry Slam. 8PM - 11PM. Betelnut.
Featuring Emilie Zoey Baker, Pooja Nansi, Zohab Khan, Ee’da Sahida Ibrahim.
Uniting world writers to slam, spin and splice their original words in a fiery battle to be crowned the UWRF 2015 Poetry Slam Champ.
Let me say this before anything else.
Poetry Slam is cool! Like, really, seriously awesome. I seriously never thought poetry would be this entertaining. I mean, yes, I do like poetry (and beautiful words). However I mostly just read them in mind instead of listening to them.
In Poetry Slam at UWRF15, people signed up to win the champion crown. I am so glad that I attended this session because I could enjoy the poetry and entertainment at the same time. As I have mentioned on previous post, Zohab Khan as the MC is awesome. I also fell for Pooja Nansi's poem titled "I am Beautiful."
"I am beautiful because I am not capable of leaving anyone.
I am beautiful because I have become capable of letting people leave me."
- Pooja Nansi
While Pooja shared with a touch of comedy, Ee'da read out lout with deeper emotion. Her closing words for her poem is definitely beautiful: "I don't mind using the word 'forever', because 'forever' is still a short time to be with you."
Oh, right, the winner of the Poetry Slam is Doni Marmer! Congratulations. It's an awesome performance! I will leave the video I found here for you to enjoy.
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Day 2, all of those above.
You can read about the second day in UWRF official blog here.
Until the post for Day 3, people!
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