Shadowing Practice: How I got addicted to creative writing (instead of scrolling) - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Today, I'm going to teach you the creative process.
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I'm going to teach you how to become creative because there is a system for this.
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There is a way to train this skill set into your life
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so that you have something better to do than consume all the time.
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I think if you're watching this, you're very likely a creative person.
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I think you have a lot of ideas.
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And I think for a long time, you've struggled to bring those ideas to life because you don't have a process.
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So you go to create something.
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You start at the very beginning.
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And then very quickly, you realize you're not at the skill level necessary to make this what you want it to be.
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So you get discouraged.
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Maybe you get distracted by another really cool idea.
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And what ends up happening is you never finish anything.
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So you never build any confidence within yourself that you can finish things.
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And you're just constantly starting new projects, getting pulled in a million directions, and you just get overwhelmed until you might even say to yourself things like, I'm not a creative person.
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I'm not cut out for this.
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These are beliefs.
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And what you really need is a system or a process that allows you to train over and over again.
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Because the more that you train your creativity systematically, the better you're going to get.
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If we haven't met, my name is Josh.
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I am a fiction writer.
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I write and perform short stories on the internet, and I help you replace your dopamine consumption with creative work.
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I wrote this book.
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It's a collection of 13 short stories, and everything that's in that book is downstream of the process I'm teaching you today.
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There's four steps to this.
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I'd recommend you get a piece of paper or something to take notes with.
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Understand, first of all, that you can do this.
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You're capable of this.
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Everything we're talking about in the realm of creativity is a skill issue, meaning you can develop it through practice.
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Step one, we call this the spark.
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You need to make yourself open to ideas.
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You need to design a life and create a mental ecosystem that allows you to receive new ideas.
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Everyone always wonders, where do ideas come from?
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And no one really has a definitive answer.
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The best thing you can do, though, is make sure you're not overstimulated all the time.
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When your brain is a quiet, calm place, there's much more room for new, interesting ideas to come about.
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Okay?
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What I would recommend is that you go for a walk today without listening to music, without any other form of stimulation.
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I would welcome boredom back into your life such that ideas make themselves known to you.
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In the beginning, the idea for your next creative project is not a massive light bulb going off over your head.
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It's a gentle whisper or a nudge on your shoulder, and you need to get good at receiving those things.
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You're not going to have divine inspiration.
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Oh my gosh, I know what my magnum opus is going to be.
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I'm going to now disappear for six months and write the great American novel and put it out to the world.
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It's very likely not going to happen.
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I would let go of that.
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What I would do is I would get bored.
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I would turn off all the noise, get your brain to be a quiet place, go for a walk, get some motion in the ocean in your body.
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And then you're going to have a little spark of curiosity.
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It's not inspiration.
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It's curiosity.
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What if I made a song using this instrument?
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What if there was a story that started with this sentence?
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Or I see a street sign that evokes something in me.
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When you feel that little nudge, you have a spark.
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So then you're going to write something down.
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You're going to have a notebook and a pen or a voice note, something, and you're going to capture the initial form of the idea.
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You're not starting the project yet.
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You are trying to capture the inspiration or the curiosity that came from you.
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This is an idea that comes from Rod Serling.
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He's the mind behind The Twilight Zone, panned a lot of the episodes.
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Anyway, capture the idea initially.
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Get that initial just one sentence summary of the idea that came to you.
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And then keep walking.
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Let it brew.
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Anytime that you let go of focusing on it, it's going to keep working in your subconscious.
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It's still cooking back there.
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That's really cool.
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Then you're going to get into the sandbox.
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This is step two.
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This is the drafting process.
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Now, for people who are just starting off with a creative process, this is where I think they find the most resistance, is taking an idea from beginning to end and allowing it to be bad,
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allowing it to be a rough draft, because they have this very pristine vision in their heads.
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they can see what it should be.
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They can hear kind of what the song should be like, or they can see the movie exactly how they want it to look.
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Oh, it's going to be like this.
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It's going to be like this amazing movie and this amazing movie mashed together.
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It's going to be great.
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And then when you face the blank page, when you're looking at a blinking cursor very quickly, you're like, Oh, whoo.
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Okay.
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This is going to be difficult.
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And maybe I can't do it.
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And maybe you can't, but that's why we're teaching the process
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so that You can make a bunch of really small things over and over again, day over day, week over week,
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until eventually you produce something bigger and more amazing just because you've continued to do it and you can't help yourself.
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The sandbox is where you're going to intentionally make a mess of the idea.
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You're going to write it out from beginning to end or, you know, whatever it is for your particular medium.
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If it's, you know, wheel throwing pottery, you're going to just make a messy first draft.
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I'm not sure how well this applies to your medium, but for writing, it makes perfect sense.
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Beginning to end as sloppy as you can.
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You want to capture the idea as it presents itself to you.
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So this is a big thing where you're not trying to control the idea.
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You're not trying to, you know, maneuver it or squeeze it into something it isn't.
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Understand that the inspiration, the idea, the creative impulse is coming from something beyond you.
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And you're trying to just channel it as best you can.
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You are the translator of the idea.
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When you think about it this way, it removes a lot of the pressure because it's not about you trying to be as brilliant as possible.
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It's like, no, I am just the medium that this idea is moving through.
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Okay.
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And it's just about being as honest as I can to
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that initial piece of DNA that made itself known to you when you first captured the idea.
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Do you remember that?
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You remember when that initial tap on the shoulder, that initial vague curiosity made itself known?
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All you're doing is you're just going from beginning to end, writing the whole thing out, staying true to that idea.
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Okay.
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It should be fun.
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So very practically what this looks like is you're chasing the excitement.
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Okay.
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You're not trying to make something amazing.
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You should be doing this very quickly, I highly recommend that this drafting process or the sandbox process is done in one sitting, if possible.
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This can take an hour, can take three hours, four hours.
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Understand that you're going to do a lot of work on this once you've generated the raw material.
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But in the words of Jordan Peele, who wrote and directed us and get out and nope,
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the rough draft is just creating a sandbox for you to play within.
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That's it.
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That's it.
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You want this to be fun.
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And anytime you hear your little critic within your brain say, oh, this is bad.
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This isn't good.
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You're just going to say, hey, I'm going to change it later.
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I don't you're not in the room right now.
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This isn't your job.
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Ray Bradbury is one of the most prolific short story writers of all time and huge inspiration of mine.
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Kept a sign at his typewriter every day of his life that he went to write that said, don't think this is not a time for thinking.
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This is a time for feeling.
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This is a time for just getting the idea out like a kid.
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Remember when you were a kid and you were just like yapping, hopefully to friends and family about just all the cool things in your brain.
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Hopefully you grew up in a place where you were allowed to do
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that because that's the kind of energy that we want right now.
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So that's what you're going to do in this rough draft.
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Anyway, I think you get the idea.
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No pressure.
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Just go for as long as you can.
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Once you start to feel your reserves deplete, once you get tired, you don't really want to do it anymore.
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Stop.
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Just take a break.
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Breathe.
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Don't distract yourself.
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Don't go on your phone.
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Don't do something else.
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Let your brain relax.
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Just actually rest.
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Okay.
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This is a big thing is that passive consumption of media, distraction, cheap dopamine chasing is not actually rest.
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It's more stimulation.
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And so when you do that as a means of getting away from the work, you're not refilling your reservoir or your resources.
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You're continuing to deplete yourself such that it'll become harder to return to the work
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when you're ready or when you want to.
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So rest, sit in silence, go for another walk, go talk to someone, maybe read a book.
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The beautiful thing about having a completed rough draft
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or a completed sandbox is that now you have captured all the DNA of the idea.
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You have this initial form and that is a precious thing.
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You don't want it to be perfect.
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You want the most honest, messy, sloppy thing that you can possibly create because that was the idea moving through you.
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And now you know what it wants to be.
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Okay.
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This isn't about you.
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This isn't about you looking brilliant.
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This isn't about you making a song that's going to makes people compare you to Dua Lipa or whoever the fuck, right?
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Like the idea made itself known to you and then wanted to move through you.
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And I understand this is getting a little bit spiritual woo woo, but I promise you, when you start to look at the work this way,
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all of your ego anxiety and all of your worries about becoming good and liked and successful, they start to go away because then your attention shifts to,
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okay, what is my job?
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How can I best be of service to this idea?
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How can I serve the process?
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How can I be present in this experience?
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And that's where the good work comes from.
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Ego anxiety creates more ego anxiety.
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That is not what you need when you want to develop your creative process.
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Okay.
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So once you have that rough draft, great.
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Now you have material to play with.
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That takes us into step three, which is the sculpting.
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Step three, the sculpting is where you start to refine the work.
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It's where you start to read through what you've just produced very slowly and without any judgment.
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And you just try to start making it what it needs to be.
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Again, not making it good, great, amazing, the best thing a human being's ever made.
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None of that.
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Making it what it needs to be.
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If you've done your job in the drafting process, you know what the idea wants to be.
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Now you just serve the idea by trimming the fat and adding some extra muscle tissue, writing in new paragraphs, introducing more clarity, removing things that you don't need.
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Now, I can't just tell you exactly how to do that.
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That's a qualitative evolution that you'll make in your own process.
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You'll get better at this over time by consuming media
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and art that you really enjoy and that inspires you and then continuing to run this process.
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Okay.
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What I do to start the sculpting process is I just clean up the sandbox.
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So I go through and I add periods to the sentences that are missing them.
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And I'll edit the typos and I'll hit enter a few times between paragraphs
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so that I can kind of see the material.
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I'm not making any qualitative adjustments.
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I'm not changing sentences.
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I'm not adding material.
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I'm not making any hard creative decisions yet.
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I'm just kind of working my way in through the edges.
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Okay, let's, oh, that's missing a thing.
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I believe Roald Dahl did this.
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It can be really daunting to approach a piece of raw material because it's like, oh, this is a fucking mess.
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How am I possibly going to make this good?
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And the truth is you just kind of slowly tiptoe your way in.
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If you can spend five to 10 minutes editing some of the surface level mistakes, suddenly you've made 12 keystrokes or you've made a couple changes.
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And then it's like, you know what?
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This sentence is kind of funky.
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I'm going to change this one word or this sentence is a little bit too long, whatever.
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Adjust this to whatever your medium is.
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Maybe it's music, whatever, but you just work your way in through the edges.
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That's it.
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And then slowly you start to get into it
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and you start making more changes and you kind of slowly build up your momentum.
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That's kind of how it goes.
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And then you're editing.
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You're in the refinement process.
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And this can take a long time.
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For me, I keep it pretty short.
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My creative philosophy right now is
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that I want to make as many things as fast as possible to get as good as possible.
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I think that spending a month on something isn't going to make it
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that much better than if I were to spend a week on something
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and I'm better off just making a lot of things.
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You might feel differently and that's OK, the sculpting process, the refinement process, the editing process is going to take some time.
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At a certain point, you stop.
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You start to chase or at least I start to chase the relief of being done with the piece.
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Right.
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So it's like, oh, I would rather be done with this and move on to the next thing.
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So I'm not going to try to make it perfect.
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And when you're starting off building this process, trying to run this system as many times as you can, I recommend letting go of perfection and actually chasing imperfection,
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learning to let it in saying, you know what, I'm going to make an imperfect piece so
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that I can finish it so that I can start the next one.
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Big theme here is that repetition.
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We're training a system into our lives.
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We're building it, programming these skills into ourselves so that we can repeat them.
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Because if we repeat this a hundred times, 200 times, a thousand times, we're going to be much better creatives than if we were to try to,
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you know, spend a year working on a novel without ever having done something before.
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Does that make sense?
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Okay.
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That's why I love short stories.
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They allow me to finish something and then move on to the next one and get better over time.
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Do that 13 times, 20 times.
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That's a book.
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So that's how I approach it.
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Stay true to the spirit of the idea.
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Get the idea out as it wants to come out.
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Make sure it's honest.
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Make sure that it is as good as you can make it and then release it.
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And that brings us to our final step of the process, which is the sharing.
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And this can look like a lot of different things.
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Maybe you're someone who wants to share the work on the internet or in some other public setting.
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Maybe it's something you just want to share with a friend, or maybe it's something you want to put on your shelf and just keep it for you.
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Whatever it is, whatever the final end place of the piece is, that's fine.
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But what you're going to do is you're going to let it go.
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You're going to let it go.
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You're going to finish it.
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You're going to understand that, yeah, you could have probably spent more time on it and made it better, but you're just going to let it go.
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And you're going to put it away so that you can start the next one.
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Let's review what we've covered so far.
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You've created a mental ecosystem.
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You've quieted your brain so that you can receive ideas, ideas like sparks.
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Okay.
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The seed of an idea.
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It's going to be a gentle tap on the shoulder, not a massive light bulb moment.
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Okay.
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Once you receive a seed, you're going to write something down.
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You're going to write down the spirit of the idea.
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Just one sentence, a story that goes like this, or a song that sounds like this, or a piece of pottery that looks like this, or drawing that...
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Okay.
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So you're going to just write that initial thing down and you're going to get into the practice of listening for ideas.
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You're going to pay attention to your life so that ideas make themselves known to you.
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The more you do this, the more ideas will come to you.
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I promise you, this is a flywheel, right?
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This is a snowball of momentum.
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And once it's going, and once you feed it, it continues to speed up.
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And that's what takes the place of your consumption habits because you slowly become quietly addicted to creativity and to ideas.
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And that is a much better way of living your life in the modern world than chronic consumption.
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So you write down the initial idea.
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Then you get in the sandbox.
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You make a messy, long, very human first draft.
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I write everything by hand.
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I recommend you do the same thing.
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Just get the idea out.
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Then transcribe it over, whatever.
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Start editing it.
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Start refining it.
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Work your way around the edges.
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Just slowly find your way in.
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Face that initial resistance of, it's not good.
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It's not good.
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It's not good.
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Just keep yourself calm.
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Regulate yourself.
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Take deep breaths.
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Edit just the surface level things.
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And then slowly you start to add material and take stuff out and you're working the piece again.
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And then finally share it.
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Give it away.
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Give it away.
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It doesn't belong to you anymore.
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It belongs to the world.
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Let it go.
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Move on to the next one.
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You are a creative living in the modern world.
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This is what the process looks like.
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Creativity is a skill set.
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It is something you can train.
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And I believe you need to train it as a means of replacing your consumption, as a means of having something better to live for than chronic distraction all the time.
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Run the process.
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See what you're capable of.
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See what needs to come out of you release it to the world and then move on to the next one.
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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección
Esta lección de conversación de nivel B2 se basa en el vídeo “How I got addicted to creative writing”. Este vídeo tiene 307 frases y 3325 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 14:51. El hablante habla rápido, unas 224 palabras por minuto, así que espera sonidos enlazados y reducidos. El 88 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés, por lo que el vocabulario es fácil de seguir.
Vocabulario clave de este vídeo
Las 15 palabras más avanzadas del vídeo, con su pronunciación y significado:
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| sandbox sustantivo | /ˈsæn(d).bɑks/ | arenero, caja arenácea |
| sculpt verbo | /skʌlpt/ | esculpir |
| curiosity sustantivo | /ˌkjʊɹ.iˈɑ.sə.ti/ | curiosidad |
| spark sustantivo | /ˈspɑɹk/ | chispa, centella |
| creativity sustantivo | /kri.eɪˈtɪv.ᵻ.ti/ | creatividad |
| messy adjetivo | /ˈmɛsi/ | desordenado, desprolijo |
| deplete verbo | /dɪˈplit/ | depletar, mermar |
| dopamine sustantivo | /ˈdoʊ.pəˌmin/ | dopamina |
| nudge verbo | /nʌd͡ʒ/ | empujar ligeramente, dar un empujoncito a |
| qualitative adjetivo | /ˈkwɑ.ləˌteɪ.tɪv/ | cualitativo |
| refine verbo | /ɹɪˈfaɪn/ | refinar |
| refinement sustantivo | /ɹəˈfaɪnmənt/ | refinación |
| sloppy adjetivo | /ˈslɑ.pi/ | desprolijo, chapucero |
| bulb sustantivo | /ˈbʌlb/ | bulbo, cabeza |
| stimulation sustantivo | /stɪm.jʊˈleɪ.ʃən/ | estimulación |
Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| write down verbo | apuntar, anotar | |
| clean up verbo | limpiar | |
| come out verbo | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | revelarse, salir a la luz |
| end up verbo | terminar, ir a parar | |
| get out verbo | salir | |
| go away verbo | irse, marcharse | |
| go through verbo | atravesar | |
| speed up verbo | /spiːdˈʌp/ | acelerar, apurarse |
Frases que vale la pena repetir
Frases cortas y completas del vídeo que puedes reutilizar en la conversación diaria:
- Today, I'm going to teach you the creative process.
- What if I made a song using this instrument?
- How can I serve the process?
- How can I be present in this experience?
- How am I possibly going to make this good?
Gramática en este vídeo
Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:
| Estructura | En el vídeo |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora | you've struggled · haven't met · you've continued |
| Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosa | people who are · three, which is · process, which is |
| Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace | were allowed · being done · be done |
Pronunciación a tener en cuenta
El hablante usa 111 contracciones y formas reducidas, como you're, I'm, don't. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.
- Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: stimulation /stɪm.jʊˈleɪ.ʃən/, distraction /dɪsˈtɹæk.ʃən/, imperfection /ɪmpɚˈfɛkʃən/, repetition /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/, subconscious /sʌbˈkɑn.ʃəs/
- Palabras largas — cuida el acento: curiosity /ˌkjʊɹ.iˈɑ.sə.ti/, creativity /kri.eɪˈtɪv.ᵻ.ti/, qualitative /ˈkwɑ.ləˌteɪ.tɪv/, stimulation /stɪm.jʊˈleɪ.ʃən/, ecosystem /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/
Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:
- s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: sculpt /skʌlpt/, spark /ˈspɑɹk/, sloppy /ˈslɑ.pi/, stimulation /stɪm.jʊˈleɪ.ʃən/, snowball /ˈsnoʊbɔl/
- /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: creativity /kri.eɪˈtɪv.ᵻ.ti/, qualitative /ˈkwɑ.ləˌteɪ.tɪv/, overwhelm /ˌoʊ.vɚˈwɛlm/, maneuver /məˈnuvɚ/, definitive /dɪˈfɪn.ɪ.tɪv/
- /z/ — sonora, no /s/: translator /ˈtɹænzleɪtɚ/, reservoir /ˈɹɛz.ə(ɹ).vwɑɹ/, squeeze /skwiːz/
Cómo practicar con este vídeo
- Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
- Empieza a velocidad 0,75×, haz shadowing frase por frase y vuelve a la velocidad normal cuando te resulte fácil.
- Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como sandbox, sculpt, curiosity.
¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.