I have one long unpublished work called Aki no Mikazuki 秋の三日月 also known as Autumn Crescent Moon. I began writing it when I was in high school about the same time I wrote Botan –peony- I have a total of 15 chapters written since high school and I have decided to rewrite it. For those who just knew me, they wouldn’t know about the existence of this work. So, allow me to introduce this work of mine to you. Aki no Mikazuki, will be called as ACM a shortened version of Autumn Crescent Moon from now on, brings reader into the perspective of an oiran. An oiran is a courtesan in Japan who is known to be talented in the arts of socializing, sexual services as well as literature, music and ceremonial arts. Sounds familiar? Oiran is not to be misunderstood as Geisha. A Courtesan excels in socializing and markets her sexual services while a Geisha, an artist, does not. They terribly misunderstood by people throughout the world. I will not be explaining the differences as there are plenty of articles that kindly explain their differences from their kimono, sash/obi, makeup, and hair accessories as well as their main job. Aki no Mikazuki starts off with the protagonist, Himawari, being sold to an Okiya by her father. An Okiya is where oiran and geisha live not where they work. They work at a place called Ageya. Of course, Himawari is not her real name. She is then assigned to assist an elder sister called Izu. With age gap, Izu becomes a full-fledged oiran before Himawari. To learn from Izu is what Himawari has to do to survive the industry as she is constantly under hostile scrutiny of other oiran for having the privilege to follow Izu, the highest courtesan, A Tayuu. Sneak peek!
Art by Kuraiaku Rewriting this piece is a challenge as I plan to change almost everything except the main plot. The reason why I want to rewrite this piece is because throughout the years of not writing, I had been reading—and I still do—and I realized something I lack in my writing or at least I think I do. What is different is I read Chinese novel. When I student-exchanged to Malaysia, I bought a novel and surprisingly my Chinese level could still manage to read through and understand what was going on in the story. Then, when I came back to Indonesia I got another Chinese novel waiting for me to savor. Now that I have read it, I learn something new. My previous writing was full of descriptions I thought was helping readers imagine. However, I tended to go over with plenty of descriptions that are not really necessary. I did not know how to implement cultural information or historical information naturally and I always had to add brackets or long footnotes to explain. It has been two years since Botan –peony- was published and within those two years, I was completely overwhelmed by real life demands that I did not have the time to properly write a piece until end of last year. Now that this semester is ending and that my thesis has been completed, I try to set myself back on track to be productive while waiting for my thesis defense schedule to show itself on the student website. So far, I have written a prologue, chapter 1, 2, and 3. I am currently working on chapter 4. At this point, everything is compact, clear and not in the state of ‘overwrite’. I do not improve, in the sense of vocabularies or difficulties of writing, but I seem to have learnt how to show more than tell. I sent these prologue and three chapters to a couple of friends and they gave me positive feed backs. I need to thank Alicia Lidwina, my good friend, who kindly shared me her “per scene” system. I do not incorporate a system like that I only write whatever I like and stop whenever I like as well so some chapters are really lengthy and I really want to stop the habit of overwriting. So I’m trying her per scene method and so far it is showing a result that I prefer. I will keep trying to divide chapters by scenes and hopefully this way, it is lighter for readers to read. However, I’m at the point where I might just put two or three scenes in one chapter but I am only doing that if it is under 3000 words. I am setting quite a few rules onto myself because although ACM is a story about oiran in the Edo period, it doesn’t mean it is romance focused. It has romance but I hope the mystery is taking the main spotlight. It is yet another challenge for me. Perhaps, one day I will disclose its synopsis when I think the time is suitable and I would love to know people’s reaction to it before maybe uploading sample chapters. I’m looking forward completing this piece while working on publishing Botan –peony- second volume! I can’t guarantee when I’m going to release ACM because I’m a rather slow writer and life has other demands for me. We’ll see.
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