Then vs. Now

I was driven home by Ace after eating. What happened to me after that?

When I opened the door of the room, I immediately thought back to the draft novel series that I hadn't finished. I want to be able to consistently update one chapter a week of English novels. However, I found it difficult to divide my time, thoughts, and physical strength to write and compose.

This novel I'm talking about is about the experience of being freelance. I want to share the joys and sorrows, how to overcome problems when I became a freelancer and others. I feel that this experience can be a positive view or reference for young people who are in need of a view of life. The experience that I get and I share may not be as big as the experience of entrepreneurs with millions of dollars of capital out there, but there is still a side of science and practice that can be taken wisdom, right?

Because I thought like that, I became confident to compile this semi-autobiographical novel. The experience of being freelance as the main discussion, then so that there is entertainment value, I add a romance story in it. I also included elements of drama in some parts.

During this writing process, I felt that my writing style had changed a lot from when I was a student. In the past, I also wrote. Why am I writing? There are various reasons. It feels embarrassing to reveal everything.

I used to have no money to eat. So, I need money to buy food. I use my writing skills to get food. By writing a short story and when it was successfully published in the newspaper, I earned an honor of several hundred thousand rupiah. It was from this honor to write that I was able to buy food and meet other needs. As long as I was a student, I often didn't have enough money to make ends meet, including eating. I can't eat three meals a day. I feel that my fate is really unfortunate. I didn't want to rely on others, so I used my ability to earn a living for myself.

I have also taken on the role of a minute. From that role, I got an honor of several hundred thousand rupiah that can be used also to connect life. My parents are not rich, they can't support my life completely financially, so I have to find a way to finance my own life. After all, I have the resourcefulness and energy, and the ability I can rely on, so I feel that it's time to hone my skills and my endurance. So, I decided to have no problem doing whatever I could do, while honing my skills, I could survive.

Honor writes I can't get every week. Honor writing also I can't get every month, so there is a lot of emptiness. The ability to write is very mediocre. My short stories are more often not published than they are published in newspapers or in other media, so I can't really rely on writing short stories as a way to make a living. It's just one of them.

I thought that I should still have a monthly salary. A notification also cannot be done every month, because the event that requires the minutes is not much, even if there is, not all of them will give honor to the minutes. So, I decided to take freelance and part-time work.

With my student status, I did some work. Therefore, I understand the busyness of Ace, although the part-time work level he has is obviously very much different, but I think I understand the point.

In the past, I was not only part-time as a guard of a computer rental, I was also a cashier guard at the Zoo, a popular tourist spot in Yogyakarta. Per day I get a salary of Rp40,000. I choose to be paid per day so that I can eat, print college assignments, and so on. I also worked as a waitress in Phuket, a Thai restaurant. In addition, I still continue to write short stories and opinions that I send to newspapers. Unfortunately, not everything is successfully loaded. The effort that felt futile had made me desperate, had also felt that I had no talent for writing, that I might not be destined to be a great writer. Being a legend in the field of writing must be an impossible dream, too far from reality, there is no path to achieve it.

Time passed with me continuing to write. I started not caring about newspapers. I don't send my short story or opinion there anymore. I piled my writing on my laptop. Meanwhile, in everyday life, I continue to be a part-timer for a job very different from the writing world. I forgot the purpose of sending works to newspapers to be loaded and get honors. In the end, I also erased it completely from my mind. I switched to writing short stories. From being a tool to earn money to a place where I vent the psychological pressure I feel. I began to become indifferent to the form of prose I made. I also don't care if the short story I make belongs to the literary class or not. I don't care anymore. I had fun, was angry, sad, everything I expressed into it. I don't care if someone will read it or not. I also don't care whether someone reads it later, the reader will be happy or not. I don't need compliments from my writing. At that point, all I needed, my essay, was a place where I could vent all the psychological pressure.

If I had made a romance story with a sweet feel, it might have been a time when I wanted an intimate relationship. I miss the sweet familiarity between me and my partner. A familiarity that never happened. That feeling of longing then I described in a storyline. I remember, the genre can be fantasy-romance, dark romance, mystery-romance, and many others.

At that time, I also entertained myself more and more by reading books. I don't care about genre, even who the author is, I don't care about either. I use books, which I read, as entertainment. My place can get away from the confusing realities of life. Because I feel like I don't know where my life is going. Sometimes, I think I'm the captain of my life so I can steer my ship to my destination safely without having to face a big wave. I imagine I could control the ship as I pleased. However, it turns out that I am not the main captain. I became more and more discouraged. I'm afraid no one will defend me. So, I don't want to be stubborn, continuing to make up may be a big mistake.

I stopped making things up. Maybe for a year. At the time, I was working in a Travel Guide office. There, my job is to be a writer who introduces tourist attractions. Surprisingly, I don't travel to the tourist attractions I write about. I write based on the information I get from secondary sources. I didn't last long there, just one year. During that time, I didn't make up. I also don't enjoy life even if I earn a stable salary every month. I am financially secure. I've been able to make a living with better honors than during my time as a student. However, I still feel that there is something lacking. I'm still at the bottom. I still find it hard to breathe.

During that time I also reflected on the function of my existence in the world. If being an author is not my destiny, then where am my real place?

I often feel like I was born in the wrong year. I often feel like I'm in the wrong place. I also feel like I've been in touch with the wrong people. I often feel like I shouldn't be here right now.

That feeling made me confused. That feeling disrupted my concentration and in the following year, after dropping out of the Travel Guide, by the time I moved to work as a reporter, I started writing again. Not an essay that has a clear plot, such as a short story with the genre of mystery, romance, teens, or others. It was just a diary. I also recorded dreams. I'm trying to communicate with myself. I'm trying to find myself. I'm trying to find signs, which person is right for me and which one I should avoid.

During my time as a reporter, every day I dreamed, from good dreams to nightmares. The thing is, I have nightmares more often. It made me start to think that life as a reporter wasn't destined for me either. Even though I have equipped myself with the knowledge of being a reporter or journalist during college, if it is not destined for me, then there is a voice that always tells me that I am in the wrong place.

I reflected on everything. I finally decided to stop being a journalist. It's true, I can be a successful journalist if I follow the workflow correctly, but the voice keeps telling me I'm in the wrong place.

In that musing I got a glimmer of certainty, albeit vaguely, that I could keep making things up if I became a freelancer. I can use my writing skills to make a living and at the same time divide the time to make up. And now, here I am, sitting in front of my desk in a boarding room because of an odd decision. Here I am contemplating the continuation of the plot of the serialized novel story published in WebNovel. I've earned a contract for Indonesian work, now I want to level up, become an author with a work that enters the global realm.

The fight in the global realm seems interesting.