Time Travel

Ugh...

I can't believe I'm still at it, still banging out pages for my next novel, which I had promised myself that I would finish by the end of summer, 2018 (it was already years in the making). I then told myself I would get it done by the end of that same year, and then again by the time I was ready to head back to Korea, in May of 2019 (which was more than 20 years after I returned from living there, from 1997 to 1999).

When I was in Korea, last year, I decided to take Gyeosunim in a different direction, and started writing it again (for the third time). I already had two timelines in the latest version, and after returning from Korea this time, I had a third timeline.

If you've read my first book, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary, you'll know that it takes place from March, 1997, to January, 1998, and for the most part follows my experiences during my first year of teaching English in Chŏnju, South Korea. But the main character, Roland Axam, is a different person from me and his back story is total fiction. There are flashbacks to 1995 and 1996, with some childhood and teenage memories thrown in for good measure.

But for the most part, there is one timeline.

In my new story, as I've tipped my hat in sharing some excerpts, the sequel to Songsaengnim takes place in 1998 to 1999, and in 2019. But for the past few months, as I've started once again to bang out this book, I've added a third timeline: 1988.

As I had written a while back, Roland Axam is a character that I created in my late teens and I had originally created to be a spy. For those of you who have not read Songsaengnim, here's a spoiler alert: as Roland is vacationing on Cheju Island with his friends, he reveals that he used to work for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). We only get a bit of information, as Roland tells his friend that he can't talk about what he did.

In Gyeosunim, I talk about what he did in 1988.

I have also blogged about how I had written a spy trilogy more than 30 years ago but had lost the manuscripts over the years. There was no way that I could rewrite those books but I started thinking that I could take the best parts, as I remember them, and work them into this new novel, where Roland, retired from CSIS, recovering from a life-altering loss, finds himself in his second year of teaching English in South Korea.

I'm trying to make these three timelines work for this book, and that's what's taking me so long. So for those of you who have read my first novel and are waiting for the sequel, please have patience. I hope to be done soon.

But don't hold your breath.