My first post was in 2004 and my last post was in 2007. I read few entries and..OMG..its like reading your old diary. Hai ababil version of me...I miss you so much!!
Maroon 5 - This Love (Number 4 Billboard Top 100 Song of 2004)
From my first entry on Oct 2004, something that shock me was this part...
well, finally i have my own blog....:), my sis blog inspired me to have one also..you can visit her blog at ayikrisda@blogspot.com, i am not really like to write actually, but who knows??? hehehehe
Well...8 years ago, I said that I didn't like to write...and can you guess what I do for living now? Yup, I am a writer now. Mostly I write screenplay for sinetron that your mom and mbak di rumah watch religiously at home.
Yup and yup..I wrote scripts for "perusak mental bangsa" dan "tontonan nggak bermutu" ituh *calmly smile*udah biasa dicela*
8 years ago, I build my career in one of the oldest and biggest advertising agency in Jakarta. As a copywriter? Creative? Nope. I was an account executive. I deal with client and not create a Citra Pariwara winning TVC or print ads. I managed the brands. I baby sit the client and the creative, take care the bill and ensure that the campaign was well delivered with expected result. It was not a "creative job" more into management type.
I learnt to negotiate, present the idea, fight with client as well as the internal team and supervise every creative process. Basically took all the shit before everyone else in the agency.
But I love my job. I had the time of my life.
Great clients where I learnt so so much since I don't have any degree in advertising, communication or marketing.
Great great bosses, friends and office environment. We literally work hard and play hard. I expanded my networking, added many new friends beyond I can't imagine.
Despite shit happened sometimes. Despite you have to work long hours-weekends. Travelling in insane schedules. So so incomes. Still I love it because I was doing it with all my heart and soul.
Whatever I achieved today, I owe it to my 10 years advertising jobs.
It was my comfort zone, my auto-pilot job desk.
Til my mom passed away. Then I lost a purpose in my life. Everything become so dull, boring, not challenging enough. My comfort zone made me dying inside. I need changes.
Then I started to curhat to my best friend who worked with a very successful writer - in the peak of his time in sinetron world. My beastie got tired, sick and "muak dengan segala tekanan sinetron Indonesia". She offered me to try her world and I gave her tips on "kerjaan yang lebih kantoran".
And my first question to her is...I can't write! I even forget that I have this stupid blog. I never write any notes in Facebook. I was not a sinetron watcher and you ask me to write a screenplay? What the hell is screenplay? All I know are creative brief, storyboard, invoice and notulen meeting etc etc aka I was an advertising bitch not a bloody writer.
She still forced me to meet The Boss. "You like to watch movies, telenovelas, K-dramas, J-dramas and that's enough". And I think "Oh, so everyone who basically likes to watch movies can be a sinetron writer? No wonder there was a lot of "similarity" with sinetron negara lain"
So I met the Boss. And he asked me to watch a Korean drama and "give input" to his sinetron story. I watched the drama already and what the hell..I will did it to "add spices in my dully day"
Plus, I can write suka-suka in my own language and sent the material by email at nite so I can work as usual.
But 3 weeks after that, The Boss asked me to come to his office/home/asrama penulisnya :).
He put a paper in front of me and draw a family tree of his masterpiece sinetron that will start the new session.
Me. Speechless. I never watched the previous sessions. And he said "no problems, it's not that complicated. My head hurt. So many characters. A total bitch, a rural girl, a rich boy, slap here and there, fake pregnancy, psycho brother in law? Welcome to sinetron world bebihhhh!!
Three months later, I quit my comfort zone and took the new challenge as a freelancer. Join the boss's team. It was January, 2008.
My Plan B, if this is not working, I"ll back to my old office dengan menunduk malu hehehee.
Mid 2009, I sailed in fancy cruise with all the casts and crews to celebrate the huge success of that program.
Around March 2011, I finished the last season of that sinetron without The Boss, but with my own team.
I survive as a freelancer and a writer. That's the gift from the older me to the younger me.
Enable to work from home, do something that you love, are the luxury of 21st century.
Especially when you live in third world country with the worst traffic jam in the world.
Nothing beat work from the comfort of your home with daster and make up free.
Sometime I still can believe that I can have this luxury, when I started it with zero knowledge and skills.
I only have my experiences in advertising industry and somehow I maximize use it to survive in this crazy world called "dunia sinetron"
Same with my old cellphone number that I still keep even though I rarely use it, i will keep this blog even I will write only once a while.
So when the world drives me crazy, I lose again purpose in life or simply i change to be someone that I am not, I can read this blog and see tiny bit pieces of my life there....
...and reminds myself to be a better me
