A while ago, there was a Q&A session in my Instagram account, as part of a monthly challenge I did. After fearing that I would not have any questions thrown at me, I was excited to see that there were in fact quite a few questions I got, regarding writing in general & my coming book.
Something I dreaded turned out to be something enjoyable, and it was a nice experience! So much so that I decided to put a few of them to ‘The Author’ page.
I’m also putting them here for a keepsake, and the ones that have to do with my coming book, The Invisible Ones, will only be here instead of in ‘The Author’ page.
Q & A session with D P Haka, as copied from her Instagram post, May 30th, 2020.
Q: Why did you want to be a writer?
A: Hmm, I don’t think I ever ‘wanted’ to be a writer. I’ve seriously wanted to be a manga artist because I love to draw and make up stories, but as I grew older I found less time to draw, so writing became more of a thing. I’ve been writing just for fun ever since I was 9 or 10, and before self-pub was a thing, I didn’t know what to do with my stories. When I finally figured the whole self-pub thing, writing & publishing a book seemed like the next thing to do! So here I am now! I think writing, to me, is mainly an outlet for my creativity, where I can also share my feelings & emotions to anyone who wants to read them. It’s also a good therapy for myself, to let out these emotions in writing rather than bottle them up.
Q: Which author has a writing style you struggle with and which author’s writing style do you love?
A: Ooh, very good one. Hmm, I have only 1 experience of struggling with someone’s writing style and I’m not completely sure if it’s his or the translator’s ’fault’. The book is called Man Tiger in English, and though the author, Eka Kurniawan, wrote it in my mother tongue (Indonesian), I only got to read it in English. It was hard to read because there are very long paragraphs with 10 different topics and there are very few gaps between each ‘action’ that I felt like I was swimming in a murky water. But surprisingly, I really loved the story and the idea behind it, the book ends up to be one of my all time faves. The ones whose style I love has got to be Diane Setterfield and Gillian Flynn.
Q: What’s your favorite book?
A: Ah, my fave book of all time still hasn’t changed: ‘The Phantom of the Opera’! It has everything I love in a story: unrequited love, tragedy, misunderstood character. And of course I love the fact that it’s dark (lots of murder there), sad, dramatic, and that it spans over a long period of time (but the pacing is quick). So it’s kind of like a writing bible for me.
Q: If you could be a fictional character, who would you be?
A: Christine Daae! And I’d forget Raoul to go with Erik. (This is why I didn’t make the book.)
Q: What’s your favorite thing about being a writer?
A: Hmm… how to say this without sounding like a psycho? My fave thing about being a writer is to be able to play God… (in a very small scale!). ‘Cause, you know, we get to create our own worlds, our own people/creatures, decide who gets what and who dies… okay, I’ll stop right here before the internet police come & and take me away.
Q: Do you spend a lot of time doing research for your stories or do you just ‘write from the seat of your pants’?
A: For something as trivial as ‘do people eat this/that in this area?’, I don’t spend too much time researching it. For more important ones like ‘how to drug someone’ (both examples are from my search history) I do spend time to get to the bottom of things, because so far I write stories that happen in real world (non-fantasy). Other than searching online, I also ask people’s personal experiences and discuss things with others to get their POVs and know what works/don’t.
Q: What is your writing practice? Same time or place?
A: Before lockdown: random time, depending on my work schedule. After lockdown I was already nearly done with my coming book so I just wrote as much as I could whenever possible! Place: always the same, my good ol’ workspace in our living room.
Q: Do you write daily?
A: No. What a shocker, right? But since I’m not a planner, that’s just the way I am. Sometimes I just can’t hear the voices, so I don’t push myself to write air. And, right now, for example, when I’m waiting for feedback from my beta readers, I don’t write at all (though I have found some new ideas for new projects).
Q: Will you ever write in a different genre?
A: Yes! Believe it or not, before writing 2 psychological thrillers, I started with romance, paranormal YA, and action stories. After my coming book is out, I’m gonna do children’s book(s), or try my best, at least!
Q: Do you have a set schedule you stick to for writing or do you write whenever you have time/make time?
A: Due to my full time job, I usually write when I have the time. This used to mean late nights after work, but of course the lockdown changed that. Even so, I don’t think I can schedule my writing. I’m bad at planning things! So when I feel the urge, I write. If I’m at work at that moment, then I’d just quickly write down key words to my phone’s notes so I’d remember what to write when I get home.
Q: Do you plan to write more books based in Indonesia?
A: I do, as a matter of fact! Not quite sure yet ‘when’ exactly, but I have always wanted to do something that has to do with reincarnations and the old kingdoms of Indonesia. It will require lots of research, though, so… maybe one day!
Q: Who’s your all-time fave character to write?
A: Okay, my all time fave character to write so far has got to be Indra (from my coming book)! Anything seems possible with him! Things that I can’t normally do with other characters, I can do with him. And I can’t say anything more, because: spoiler. But the gray characters are always a delight to work with.
Q: What inspired your WIP?
A: The Invisible Ones (the name of my coming book) is basically about the ignored ones, the ones we don’t see/care to know about, because they’re not interesting/good-looking/successful enough. They’re everywhere around us, IRL and in social media. My inspiration came from my own ‘sad life’, but I wanted to make it a lot more… sinister. Vengeful. Twisted and dark. So it’s very far from my real life/experience, I promise.
Q: What’s your favorite line of your wip (work in progress)?
A: Ooh, this was tough. And I’m gonna answer with a long one, taken from Maya’s POV:
‘I hated him then.
I hated him for making my name sound beautiful, for putting a new meaning into it, breaking my lifelong belief that my parents just hated me from the day I was born that they named me after a mirage, as if I wasn’t real.
I hated him for making me feel real, and visible.
And most of all, now that I felt visible, I hated him for making me feel like he liked what he saw.
I hated him, because not only had I already fallen for him, but now I was starting to realize that he might actually stay and turn my world upside down.’
To all of you who were involved in the Q&A session, I was honored to have your questions and answer them. Thank you so very much for the interest. Hope you’ll enjoy reading this as much as I did writing the answers!
Author D. P. Haka 