Note From Tongal: “Staying Creative When You're Home for the Holidays” is part of a series of Tongal Community-written blog posts that were originally sourced in the Tongal Blog Open Call Project. Read more Tongal Community-written posts here and then Pitch us a topic you'd like to write about for the Tongal Blog!
--
You got the pumpkin spice latte in October and you took seconds of the Thanksgiving turkey and have no regrets about that in November. Now you still have the December holidays to survive, and if you count New Years which has the audacity to creep into January, there’s that too. You couldn’t be more immersed in Fourth Quarter Craziness; it’s a never-ending blur of Happy This, Merry That, Celebrations, and Thank Yous. And now it's the most daunting: the return trip home, sometimes you go for a week, mostly it's ten days, and sometimes you take advantage of the full two-week industry shut down and really hibernate.
You have to navigate TSA, the turbulence on your connecting flight, the rental car that has one too many questions about extra insurance. Most likely you resurrect the cold weather gear that you completely abandoned when you bought your one-way ticket to Southern California. But you still forget Chapstick, so you swing by the store, make sure to remember the paraben-free shampoo you’ve grown accustomed to, that you know isn’t regularly stocked in your childhood shower.
Home for the holidays. Whether you put an exclamation or question mark after that last sentence, it doesn’t matter. You could start out psyched then end up bummed, you could be dreading it and then find yourself in a state of complete bliss. One thing we can agree on is that for the many, it creates a certain set of challenges.
You have to see the family you like, maybe the family you don't like, your friends you meant to leave behind, and the ones you wish had followed you out. But wherever you are, it’s probably far away from your creative life and routine. Here are some tips to help you stay sharp and scratch that creative itch while you’re home for the holidays.
Find time to read one hour a day. Doesn’t matter if it’s on the toilet, on the train, or before bed, it’s important, so make time for it. And maybe read something you wouldn’t usually read. If during the year you usually read a lot of non-fiction, then check out the latest New York Times bestselling legal thriller. If you read a lot of fiction or scripts, then try some non-fiction, maybe on a subject you always wanted to learn about or a historical figure who has always fascinated you. This is a way to work a familiar muscle in a slightly different way. And when a parent puts the extremely local paper down in front of you, opened to the page with a marriage announcement of someone you went to high school with, don’t immediately recycle it, thumb through it! Maybe that article doesn’t spark for you, but maybe there’s an unusual obituary in there that inspires the opening scene of your next project.
Find time to watch something for an hour a day. Very similar to the last suggestion, but this time, you’re adding ears to work with your eyes. And again, it’s about doing it a little differently than the rest of the year. You want to reward yourself for being on vacation, it’s good, but you don’t want to completely atrophy all creative thinking. So if all year long, you consume movies, then over the holidays, binge a TV series you would never watch or one that you’ve always wanted to. If you spend your year thinking about TV, then get out to the movies a few times during the break and see some of the features that will most likely be up for awards consideration.
Keep a journal. You’re either out of your comfort zone or back in a familiar place that you left for some reason. Either way, this is the best time to be keeping track of your thoughts. There’s so much to observe, explore, feel, and relive. Make sure your receiver is turned to input and be cataloging all of this. What is the smell in this room? Was this always this size? Why did I hold onto that?
And this extends to real life people and situations as well. Be present during all the family/holiday functions. Be sure to engage in as many conversations as possible and form new memories (good and/or bad.) This will come in handy when it's back to being creative. It’s good to replenish the well, this place was possibly the location of some of your earliest inspirations, and maybe helped shape the artist you’ve become. It stands to reason there could be more here to harvest, mine, and tap.
And the conversations you aren’t in, make sure to eavesdrop on the rest. Gatherings of any size with all different types of people are the best for the creative part of you. Continue to be exposed to the different ways people act and talk; you never know when you'll be called upon in a creative endeavor to recreate this kind of situation. Ugly sweaters from an unlikely couple caught under the mistletoe, you filed that away. The argument in the driveway that ends with one significant other slipping backward on some imperceptible ice, you caught that. The tweenager who hates of all their gifts and locks themselves in their room and goes on a hunger strike, make sure to log that one!
You are going to get stressed. It’s inevitable. You are going to get frustrated, that’s part of the deal. You are going to get bored. Well duh! You might even become irate, because you’re used to checking social media and all your industry blogs every hour, and now you’ll be lucky if there’s something noteworthy every 48 hours. It’s a slow time, and the further away you are from a major city, the slower it might even feel. You’re used to your neighborhood, your exercise equipment, your coffee shop, your desktop, and it’s all not at your disposal. Again, embrace it. Do things differently; you will be rewarded creatively in the end, whether it’s an awkward encounter, a new meal, or an enlightening conversation. In this whole two weeks, if you just get one thing for it that unlocks or sends your artistic self in a new direction when you get back home, to that other home, that new home, then going home for the holidays will be worth it. But don’t expect it to stare at you right in the face, these moments are truffles, and you have to be prepared to dig. It’s called a creative itch for a reason, because it nags at you and it’s always there, you just have to learn how to scratch it differently when you’re away.
