Kebiasaan Rutin Penulis Ternama

Menulis bukanlah perkara mudah. Energi yang kita pakai untuk menulis jauh lebih besar dari energi yang kita keluarkan untuk membaca. Bukan menjadi hal heran jika karya manuskrip dari penulis ternama menjadi rebutan orang banyak di dunia. Namun tahukah anda apa yang sebenarnya menjadikan mereka hebat? Apakah menulis merupakan pekerjaan yang harus diladasarkan pada bakat?

Berikut adalah kutipan kebiasaan salah seorang penulis terkenal yang telah menghasilkan karya terbaiknya.

"I tend to wake up very early. Too early. Four o’clock is standard. My morning begins with trying not to get up before the sun rises. But when I do, it’s because my head is too full of words, and I just need to get to my desk and start dumping them into a file. I always wake with sentences pouring into my head. So getting to my desk every day feels like a long emergency. It’s a funny thing: people often ask how I discipline myself to write. I can’t begin to understand the question. For me, the discipline is turning off the computer and leaving my desk to do something else.

I write a lot of material that I know I’ll throw away. It’s just part of the process. I have to write hundreds of pages before I get to page one.

For the whole of my career as a novelist, I have also been a mother. I was offered my first book contract, for The Bean Trees, the day I came home from the hospital with my first child. So I became a novelist and mother on the same day. Those two important lives have always been one for me. I’ve always had to do both at the same time. So my writing hours were always constrained by the logistics of having my children in someone else’s care. When they were little, that was difficult. I cherished every hour at my desk as a kind of prize. As time has gone by and my children entered school it became progressively easier to be a working mother. My oldest is an adult, and my youngest is 16, so both are now self–sufficient —but that’s been a gradual process. For me, writing time has always been precious, something I wait for and am eager for and make the best use of. That’s probably why I get up so early and have writing time in the quiet dawn hours, when no one needs me.

I used to say that the school bus is my muse. When it pulled out of the driveway and left me without anyone to take care of, that was the moment my writing day began, and it ended when the school bus came back. As a working mother, my working time was constrained. On the other hand, I’m immensely grateful to my family for normalizing my life, for making it a requirement that I end my day at some point and go and make dinner. That’s a healthy thing, to set work aside and make dinner and eat it. It’s healthy to have these people in my life who help me to carry on a civilized routine. And also to have these people in my life who connect me to the wider world and the future. My children have taught me everything about life and about the kind of person I want to be in the world. They anchor me to the future in a concrete way. Being a mother has made me a better writer. It’s also true to say that being a writer has made me a better mother"

Coba perhatikan bagaimana seorang novelis memiliki kebiasaan yang unik dari bangun lebih awal di pagi hari dan mulai menuangkan ide walau harus menulis ratusan halaman yang pada intinya baru satu halaman. Barbara Kingsolver selalu berusaha bangun lebih awal agar bisa memulai hari dengan menulis disaat suasana masih sepi. Walau disaat ia di kontrak untuk novel pertamanya pada saat bersamaan ia menjadi seorang ibu. Namun, kebiasaan menulis tidak ia tinggalkan begitu saja, malah ia belajar banyak tentang cara mengatur waktu.

Rutinitas yang sudah menjadi bagian dari kebiasaan seseorang memiliki kekuatan tersendiri jika terus di jaga. Tidak ada penulis yang terlehir dengan bakat menulis, semua diasah dengan kebiasaan yang baik. Bangun di pagi hari lebih awal menjadi sebuah kebiasaan yang patut dicoba untuk memulai hari dengan menulis hal-hal kecil. Tentu saja membiasakan hal baru butuh kemauan keras dan usaha yang lebih. Tidak ada yang mustahil jika memang tekad untuk menjadi penulis sangat kuat, tinggal bagaimana cara berusaha mengatur waktu dan mendisplinkan diri untuk terus menulis dalam keadaan apapun. Hal besar selalu diawali dari yang kecil.