The first week of Erratica

The first week at Erratica came to a close, and I took a look at the journal.

What struck me? I realized that I never introduced myself.

For those who don’t know me, my name is Sosanni, and I’m in Greece.

Among other things, I spend endless hours writing books and creating art.

One can say that I am a restless creative who overthinks, surrounded by plants, overdoing the caffeine and carbs; and like all gastronauts, cooking is one of my launchpads. However – to the ‘essence ‘- the Humanities – Philosophy, Art, Literature, Belief, History, and anything else ‘culture ‘- are my thing.

Beyond that? I am a seasoned ‘been there and back’ sojourner in this world.

Trust me, experiences are eye-opening only after the storms pass.

Yup, I have finally come to understand that we must weather many storms before the lessons of experience not only set in but actually open our eyes to truths. Truths and talks that we must walk.

I’m nearing 70, so I have a good half-century of being a rebel, protesting, being taught by great minds, experiencing the salt of the earth, searching for truths, questioning everything, moving across the globe, and actually undergoing spiritual growth under my storm gear.

Now, after all these years. Now, I finally settled. Actually I was always physically settled, but my mind wasn’t.

My mind and body were not always in sync. But now my eyes are finally open. I don’t just look; I see. I am awake.

And I’m learning to see the world through the truths that reveal themselves as I peel away the layers.

I have been writing for decades. My restless yen to write books (magical realism is my ‘thing’) includes indulging in a special project I call ‘storyscapes ‘: creating characters and worlds – as a creative art form that stands alone, not meant for inclusion in a book.

It goes without saying that I have now accumulated notebooks full of these ‘creations’. These notebooks compete for space with my tsundoku.

Actually, creating storyscapes really helps me ‘study’ and observe human nature.
My ‘penchant’.

What could be challenging in sketching a character, giving them a name, and throwing a few details into their bio?

Creating characters and their worlds sounds rather simple, but actually it has its challenges.
What are the challenges?

Digging into the character and/or the world – I need to mine deep enough to reach the more sensitive and possibly unsettling details. The sensitive issues are where a creative strikes gold. The sensitive issues are the gold that makes each character and world unique and relatable.

That’s where I do my ‘learning’ when handling and dealing with difficult, sensitive, and weighty character issues.
That’s where the eye-openers come in…confronting these head-on in my notebook.

I’m always up for a good eye-opening realization or an aha! moment.

And this past week, my eye-opener was not related to a specific character or detail I was working on – my musing was about the process of writing – ‘the whole thing – part and parcel.’
‘I kept on asking myself:

• Why is it that we can see truths through fiction and not through ‘reality’?
• How is it that a writer can truly bring out a fictional ‘reality’ that resonates and is relatable to a reader?
• Is it because the writer has experienced something similar and is able to relay and portray it?
• So if a writer creates a very relatable and real character who is a criminal, for example, does that mean that the writer has an uncanny understanding of the criminal mind, having brought out the inner workings of this character’s thinking to light? (No pun intended).

Do you know what I mean?

So I was pretty much stuck lately on this question:

‘Do writers actually unlock things from their subconscious and unknowingly weave them into the setting, plot, or characters in the novels they create?’

Now that’s a disturbing thought.

I took a good look at my work through the lens of this particular question. I saw evidence that I was transferring my own ‘things’ – very subtly (I hope), but I can attest that it was certainly not intentional.

So obviously, this must be a ‘thing’ with creatives.

We pour ‘something’ into what we create – beyond inspiration. We end up expressing something beyond what we intended.

That something may or may not be obvious to others. And that brings me to a rabbit hole, looking at what experiences could trigger us to store the chestfuls of ‘things’ in our subconscious.

That idea of chests full of stored things – I liken it to a pirate ship filled with chests – but not stolen booty but stashed experiences, emotions, secrets, thoughts, fears, ideas that are ‘stolen away’ kept from anyone seeing them – sailing away to be buried in some remote island… and that thought drove me to some realizations.

One thing I realized…

It’s no wonder, then, that we can see ‘truths’ in fictional characters – relating to them, ‘feeling’ their pain, resonating with their issues because fiction is neither ‘true’ nor ‘real’.

Fiction is a safe zone.

A writer can present a character as the bitchiest thing ever put into words, but a reader may champion that character’s nasty cause because there is no judgment call being hurled at the reader for doing so by others.

And that notion led me to take a good, long look at the role of judgment calls in the ‘real world.’

Judgment calls are most often made when people immediately ‘judge’ from what they either ‘know’ or ‘glean’.

In today’s world, not many people bother to ‘know’ anything. They glean, scroll, glance, digest a minimal summary, and call that ‘knowing’. (If you know, you know.) (Right?)

Anyway…I’m bound to stray with that aptly placed pun…but back to my train of thought…how do people ‘glean’ their info? From labels. We label everything, including ourselves.

If everything and everyone wears a label, what else would it do but trigger judgment, hate, and fanaticism?