Aulia Halimatussadiah or Salsabeela or you may call her Ollie is a young, talented writer. She has written 26 books – some of them even bestsellers. Those books consist of a novel, a how-to book and some motivational books .
“Reading and writing is my life, my soul and my passion . I can not think otherwise , like we can not live without air. I also think I cannot live without reading and writing as they are a few of many ways to share with others.”
Ollie has enjoyed reading since she was in elementary school – mostly comics at the time.
In junior high school, she began drawing her own comics and even wrote the text, later producing a comic book.
In her senior high school period she began to write poetry and short stories She continued to learn about blogging and routinely wrote on her personal journal.
After she graduated from college she got a scholarship from Gagas Media, a local publisher. She had writing lessons for 3 months and she successfully completed one novel in the mean time. Gagas Media published her first novel and it become best seller novel.
The latest book she published was “Yes, You Can!”.
She is now in the process of publishing her new book, “Girls and Tech” , a book a bout how girls use technology to realize their dreams.
How reading and writing impact her life
The more reading we do , the greater our love for books and the inspiration to write comes naturally, Ollie said. She mentioned that she didn’t have basic drawing skills but learned to draw from her love of comics.She also mentioned that reading imporoved her vocabulary and ability to articulate words on paper.
She said reading helped her become a better writer and that it changed her life entirely.
Ollie built a business in writing and reading industry, (kutukutubuku.com an online book store and online self publishing with printing on deamand technology, nulisbuku.com).
Recognising what she did with these two business above and its impact plus benefit to others, this year the US Embassy invited her th U.S. as Indonesia’s representative in The International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) 2013 in the specialized field of entrepreneurship.
Ollie spent 3 weeks in the US as part of the IVLP program which recognized some entrepreneurs who created a broad impact in the social field in 193 countries around the world, but they only choose 28 representative from 28 countries.
You can earn living by become a writer
“We have Albertine Endah , Raditya Dika, Dee and many more who earn money from writing, so the answer is yes, you can earn living from writing,” she said.
“But i’m not satisfied just with writing. I need to be on the field, to have many experience so I can always give novelty and diversity in my book. For me, it is fine to build a business and keep my self writing a book at the same time. My writing side supports my business side and the other way around.” she added.
Ollie has plenty of social activities too. She teaches at a vocational school for underprivileged children in Bekasi . The children are taught a variety of skills, ranging from cooking , designing merchandise and sales.
These children have been challenged by Ollie to write a book about the skills they have learned. They write their book with crowd writing method – which is the process of writing a book in a collective group.
“So if you can not write something by your self , try to write it with others, with many resources. From this, you will earn some confidence to write book by your self later”
In one month they were able to finish it and launch their book at SocMedFest 2013 in Jakarta two weeks ago.
According to Ollie , writing a book can evoke self-esteem of these underprivileged children , they will gain valuable experience by writing.
Deadline!
According to Ollie , everyone can write as long as they are focused have a deadline. As an example, Ollie can finish one book of poetry in one day in about 6 hours while sitting down at the coffee shop with her friend. She and her friend purposely challenge themselves to create a poetry book in one day until they could do it in within six hours.
“That’s the power of focus and having a deadline . So we have to know what we’re going to do , why we do what we do , how we do it , how many steps we have to go through to finish what we do” she said.
Reading habit
When asked about the decline in youth interest in reading these days, Ollie did not agree. She used Harry Potter book as a good example, saying that although it was a thick book, youth loved it so much and it was best seller.
Ollie said, if we want to increase reading among youth , we need to make reading a fun activity, create a reading culture from home and parents should took dominant role in this process by becoming a role model for their children.
The importance of English
It’s undebateable, English is very important. English should be socialized as early as possible; in reading, speaking and writing. “But, we have some problems here as when we use English in our daily life some people considere us a snob” add Ollie.
They somehow never understand that mastering English or another foreign language will help them to promote Indonesia to the rest of the world much better.
Another serious challenge in practicing English in everyday life — children are often bullied by their peers when they use English to communicate.
“Hopefully we can create more supportive surrounding for children to learn English, so they can compete with children from other countries to be part of the world citizen”
What’s next?
Lately she has been participating in Tulis Nusantara 2013, a writing competition supported by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, where she holds a road show to 12 cities in Indonesia.
Her next project involves making a book center where it will feature a library, printing system, book stores , and even a hotel with boutique hotel concept.
Every room in this hotel would later have a special theme, named with a book’s title or an author. This concept is in the process of finding investors and locations. She hopes to complete the project within the next 5-10 years .
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