Launching My Debut Novel At 75

DEBUT NOVEL AT 75

Grandma Moses started painting at the age of 78 and wrote an autobiography at 92. My debut novel, Sonju, was launched when I turned 75.

I came to the States in 1970 when I was 24. My two children were born and raised here. They speak perfect English. You would think that my English, too, would be perfect, at least near perfect after fifty years speaking it and working as a psychotherapist for over two decades. But that hasn’t been the case for me.

I used to write five stories a day when I was ten under the guidance of my writing teacher and then went on to win first place in the province-wide, in-person writing competition. The following year, I quit writing altogether to prepare for an entrance exam for middle school. Afterwards, I was too busy with my studies all through middle school and high school.

I majored in journalism in college but came to the States where I had to learn so many new things such as nursery rhymes, customs, manners, and speech. For a Ural-Altaic language speaker, English is hellish to master. Being an immigrant speaking a different tongue, I think about language probably more than the average English speaker.

These are my thoughts on language: Each language is passed down from our ancestors’ accumulated experiences all the way from the beginning of our species. I read somewhere that the Eskimos have over 20 words to describe snow. Would desert people understand twenty minute differences in snow, something they haven’t experienced? Every word contains a unique sound, flavor, color, feeling, and meaning to describe a thing or an action particular to the language. Therefore, each translation doesn’t quite capture the subtle differences. 

This nuance in words causes me to feel inadequate about my writing. And writing demands precise wording. I love words. I love sentences. I love stories. I think this love of stories developed when I was young. It comes not only from reading books, but also from listening to older people in my clan village. Whenever they gathered, they talked about the lives of people they knew, long gone and still living, and in their retelling of stories, they were revealing their own lives. 

If you listen closely and imagine the lives of others, you find beauty and dignity in each of their own struggles. You then express them by arranging words in a particular manner. That is what writing is to me.

I always thought I would write a novel even though my plan was interrupted by immigration to a land where people spoke a different language. I had to put off writing until I felt competent in English language usage. In the meantime, alas, I lost competency in Korean, my native language, for lack of use and exposure. 

Back to writing: The time for writing came to me in a surprising way. I was going through a divorce and had to use my anger in a constructive manner. I went at it with furious energy. With a 150,000-word manuscript in my hand, I signed up for a workshop to find out exactly where my writing stood. There, what I didn’t know about writing overwhelmed me. It was another language I had to learn, but slowly, by joining critique groups, taking a few writing classes, analyzing sentences of highly-regarded novels, and doing countless revisions and editing, I learned to write. It was a public affirmation for me when Kirkus Reviews listed my debut novel, Sonju, in its 100 Best Indie Books of the Year in 2021.

I still have problems with articles, prepositions, verb tenses, and phrasal verbs. I don’t have a good grasp of American idioms or enough vocabulary to write the kind of writing I want. I accepted these limitations of mine when I started writing. I also accepted that it would take much, much longer to write because of these limitations. 

I am active in the writing community in the San Antonio area. Because of the learning process I went through, I understand the struggles of writers. I try to help when asked and promote the work of other writers. I am scheduled to teach a hybrid (in-person and virtual) writing course at Gemini Ink over four Saturdays in September. I will teach writing characters the way I wished I was taught. 

I am working on my second novel which is very different from my first and more challenging to write. At some point in the near future, I will tackle a novel that has a magical realism element and is set on a mountain in a remote part of Korea. The countryside of Korea has a special appeal to me that I can’t quite describe. It feels like my stories should come from there. 

I live a simple life. I am content and centered when I write. There’s a quiet, deep joy in writing, and this joy, a gift, should come to me at age 75. Think of that!

—

Wondra Chang was born in South Korea and has lived in the U.S. since 1970. Her writing discipline began at age ten, writing five short stories a day under the tutelage of a writing teacher. She won first place in a province-wide in-person writing competition. She studied journalism at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea. She currently lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband, Bernard Rauch.

Find out more about Wonda on her website https://wondrachang.com/

 

SONJU

Sonju opens on a chilly day in November, 1946 in Seoul, Korea. Japan has ended its thirty-five-year occupation of Korea after the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The American military has become the new occupier. Sonju is on the way to her best friend’s house when she sees two Americans in military uniforms walking ahead of her, and her heart stirs. So begins the story that spans over two decades.

Sonju comes of age in Japanese-occupied Korea, and having received a modern education, she imagines a life of equality and freedom of choice. Her ideals soon clash with the centuries-old Confucian tradition of order and conformity when her mother arranges her marriage to a man she has never met. The decisions she makes during the Korean War lead to her being disowned by her family, betrayed by her best friend, and shunned by society.

Through the period of rapidly evolving political strife in her country following its liberation in 1945, Sonju’s private struggle to seek her relevance in a male-dominated society parallels the struggles of Korea on its way to becoming a force in the word.

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