Shadowing Practice: How I got addicted to creative writing (instead of scrolling) - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
307 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
Today, I'm going to teach you the creative process.
2
I'm going to teach you how to become creative because there is a system for this.
3
There is a way to train this skill set into your life
4
so that you have something better to do than consume all the time.
5
I think if you're watching this, you're very likely a creative person.
6
I think you have a lot of ideas.
7
And I think for a long time, you've struggled to bring those ideas to life because you don't have a process.
8
So you go to create something.
9
You start at the very beginning.
10
And then very quickly, you realize you're not at the skill level necessary to make this what you want it to be.
11
So you get discouraged.
12
Maybe you get distracted by another really cool idea.
13
And what ends up happening is you never finish anything.
14
So you never build any confidence within yourself that you can finish things.
15
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.
16
I'm not cut out for this.
17
These are beliefs.
18
And what you really need is a system or a process that allows you to train over and over again.
19
Because the more that you train your creativity systematically, the better you're going to get.
20
If we haven't met, my name is Josh.
21
I am a fiction writer.
22
I write and perform short stories on the internet, and I help you replace your dopamine consumption with creative work.
23
I wrote this book.
24
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.
25
There's four steps to this.
26
I'd recommend you get a piece of paper or something to take notes with.
27
Understand, first of all, that you can do this.
28
You're capable of this.
29
Everything we're talking about in the realm of creativity is a skill issue, meaning you can develop it through practice.
30
Step one, we call this the spark.
31
You need to make yourself open to ideas.
32
You need to design a life and create a mental ecosystem that allows you to receive new ideas.
33
Everyone always wonders, where do ideas come from?
34
And no one really has a definitive answer.
35
The best thing you can do, though, is make sure you're not overstimulated all the time.
36
When your brain is a quiet, calm place, there's much more room for new, interesting ideas to come about.
37
Okay?
38
What I would recommend is that you go for a walk today without listening to music, without any other form of stimulation.
39
I would welcome boredom back into your life such that ideas make themselves known to you.
40
In the beginning, the idea for your next creative project is not a massive light bulb going off over your head.
41
It's a gentle whisper or a nudge on your shoulder, and you need to get good at receiving those things.
42
You're not going to have divine inspiration.
43
Oh my gosh, I know what my magnum opus is going to be.
44
I'm going to now disappear for six months and write the great American novel and put it out to the world.
45
It's very likely not going to happen.
46
I would let go of that.
47
What I would do is I would get bored.
48
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.
49
And then you're going to have a little spark of curiosity.
50
It's not inspiration.
51
It's curiosity.
52
What if I made a song using this instrument?
53
What if there was a story that started with this sentence?
54
Or I see a street sign that evokes something in me.
55
When you feel that little nudge, you have a spark.
56
So then you're going to write something down.
57
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.
58
You're not starting the project yet.
59
You are trying to capture the inspiration or the curiosity that came from you.
60
This is an idea that comes from Rod Serling.
61
He's the mind behind The Twilight Zone, panned a lot of the episodes.
62
Anyway, capture the idea initially.
63
Get that initial just one sentence summary of the idea that came to you.
64
And then keep walking.
65
Let it brew.
66
Anytime that you let go of focusing on it, it's going to keep working in your subconscious.
67
It's still cooking back there.
68
That's really cool.
69
Then you're going to get into the sandbox.
70
This is step two.
71
This is the drafting process.
72
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,
73
allowing it to be a rough draft, because they have this very pristine vision in their heads.
74
they can see what it should be.
75
They can hear kind of what the song should be like, or they can see the movie exactly how they want it to look.
76
Oh, it's going to be like this.
77
It's going to be like this amazing movie and this amazing movie mashed together.
78
It's going to be great.
79
And then when you face the blank page, when you're looking at a blinking cursor very quickly, you're like, Oh, whoo.
80
Okay.
81
This is going to be difficult.
82
And maybe I can't do it.
83
And maybe you can't, but that's why we're teaching the process
84
so that You can make a bunch of really small things over and over again, day over day, week over week,
85
until eventually you produce something bigger and more amazing just because you've continued to do it and you can't help yourself.
86
The sandbox is where you're going to intentionally make a mess of the idea.
87
You're going to write it out from beginning to end or, you know, whatever it is for your particular medium.
88
If it's, you know, wheel throwing pottery, you're going to just make a messy first draft.
89
I'm not sure how well this applies to your medium, but for writing, it makes perfect sense.
90
Beginning to end as sloppy as you can.
91
You want to capture the idea as it presents itself to you.
92
So this is a big thing where you're not trying to control the idea.
93
You're not trying to, you know, maneuver it or squeeze it into something it isn't.
94
Understand that the inspiration, the idea, the creative impulse is coming from something beyond you.
95
And you're trying to just channel it as best you can.
96
You are the translator of the idea.
97
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.
98
It's like, no, I am just the medium that this idea is moving through.
99
Okay.
100
And it's just about being as honest as I can to
101
that initial piece of DNA that made itself known to you when you first captured the idea.
102
Do you remember that?
103
You remember when that initial tap on the shoulder, that initial vague curiosity made itself known?
104
All you're doing is you're just going from beginning to end, writing the whole thing out, staying true to that idea.
105
Okay.
106
It should be fun.
107
So very practically what this looks like is you're chasing the excitement.
108
Okay.
109
You're not trying to make something amazing.
110
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.
111
This can take an hour, can take three hours, four hours.
112
Understand that you're going to do a lot of work on this once you've generated the raw material.
113
But in the words of Jordan Peele, who wrote and directed us and get out and nope,
114
the rough draft is just creating a sandbox for you to play within.
115
That's it.
116
That's it.
117
You want this to be fun.
118
And anytime you hear your little critic within your brain say, oh, this is bad.
119
This isn't good.
120
You're just going to say, hey, I'm going to change it later.
121
I don't you're not in the room right now.
122
This isn't your job.
123
Ray Bradbury is one of the most prolific short story writers of all time and huge inspiration of mine.
124
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.
125
This is a time for feeling.
126
This is a time for just getting the idea out like a kid.
127
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.
128
Hopefully you grew up in a place where you were allowed to do
129
that because that's the kind of energy that we want right now.
130
So that's what you're going to do in this rough draft.
131
Anyway, I think you get the idea.
132
No pressure.
133
Just go for as long as you can.
134
Once you start to feel your reserves deplete, once you get tired, you don't really want to do it anymore.
135
Stop.
136
Just take a break.
137
Breathe.
138
Don't distract yourself.
139
Don't go on your phone.
140
Don't do something else.
141
Let your brain relax.
142
Just actually rest.
143
Okay.
144
This is a big thing is that passive consumption of media, distraction, cheap dopamine chasing is not actually rest.
145
It's more stimulation.
146
And so when you do that as a means of getting away from the work, you're not refilling your reservoir or your resources.
147
You're continuing to deplete yourself such that it'll become harder to return to the work
148
when you're ready or when you want to.
149
So rest, sit in silence, go for another walk, go talk to someone, maybe read a book.
150
The beautiful thing about having a completed rough draft
151
or a completed sandbox is that now you have captured all the DNA of the idea.
152
You have this initial form and that is a precious thing.
153
You don't want it to be perfect.
154
You want the most honest, messy, sloppy thing that you can possibly create because that was the idea moving through you.
155
And now you know what it wants to be.
156
Okay.
157
This isn't about you.
158
This isn't about you looking brilliant.
159
This isn't about you making a song that's going to makes people compare you to Dua Lipa or whoever the fuck, right?
160
Like the idea made itself known to you and then wanted to move through you.
161
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,
162
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,
163
okay, what is my job?
164
How can I best be of service to this idea?
165
How can I serve the process?
166
How can I be present in this experience?
167
And that's where the good work comes from.
168
Ego anxiety creates more ego anxiety.
169
That is not what you need when you want to develop your creative process.
170
Okay.
171
So once you have that rough draft, great.
172
Now you have material to play with.
173
That takes us into step three, which is the sculpting.
174
Step three, the sculpting is where you start to refine the work.
175
It's where you start to read through what you've just produced very slowly and without any judgment.
176
And you just try to start making it what it needs to be.
177
Again, not making it good, great, amazing, the best thing a human being's ever made.
178
None of that.
179
Making it what it needs to be.
180
If you've done your job in the drafting process, you know what the idea wants to be.
181
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.
182
Now, I can't just tell you exactly how to do that.
183
That's a qualitative evolution that you'll make in your own process.
184
You'll get better at this over time by consuming media
185
and art that you really enjoy and that inspires you and then continuing to run this process.
186
Okay.
187
What I do to start the sculpting process is I just clean up the sandbox.
188
So I go through and I add periods to the sentences that are missing them.
189
And I'll edit the typos and I'll hit enter a few times between paragraphs
190
so that I can kind of see the material.
191
I'm not making any qualitative adjustments.
192
I'm not changing sentences.
193
I'm not adding material.
194
I'm not making any hard creative decisions yet.
195
I'm just kind of working my way in through the edges.
196
Okay, let's, oh, that's missing a thing.
197
I believe Roald Dahl did this.
198
It can be really daunting to approach a piece of raw material because it's like, oh, this is a fucking mess.
199
How am I possibly going to make this good?
200
And the truth is you just kind of slowly tiptoe your way in.
201
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.
202
And then it's like, you know what?
203
This sentence is kind of funky.
204
I'm going to change this one word or this sentence is a little bit too long, whatever.
205
Adjust this to whatever your medium is.
206
Maybe it's music, whatever, but you just work your way in through the edges.
207
That's it.
208
And then slowly you start to get into it
209
and you start making more changes and you kind of slowly build up your momentum.
210
That's kind of how it goes.
211
And then you're editing.
212
You're in the refinement process.
213
And this can take a long time.
214
For me, I keep it pretty short.
215
My creative philosophy right now is
216
that I want to make as many things as fast as possible to get as good as possible.
217
I think that spending a month on something isn't going to make it
218
that much better than if I were to spend a week on something
219
and I'm better off just making a lot of things.
220
You might feel differently and that's OK, the sculpting process, the refinement process, the editing process is going to take some time.
221
At a certain point, you stop.
222
You start to chase or at least I start to chase the relief of being done with the piece.
223
Right.
224
So it's like, oh, I would rather be done with this and move on to the next thing.
225
So I'm not going to try to make it perfect.
226
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,
227
learning to let it in saying, you know what, I'm going to make an imperfect piece so
228
that I can finish it so that I can start the next one.
229
Big theme here is that repetition.
230
We're training a system into our lives.
231
We're building it, programming these skills into ourselves so that we can repeat them.
232
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,
233
you know, spend a year working on a novel without ever having done something before.
234
Does that make sense?
235
Okay.
236
That's why I love short stories.
237
They allow me to finish something and then move on to the next one and get better over time.
238
Do that 13 times, 20 times.
239
That's a book.
240
So that's how I approach it.
241
Stay true to the spirit of the idea.
242
Get the idea out as it wants to come out.
243
Make sure it's honest.
244
Make sure that it is as good as you can make it and then release it.
245
And that brings us to our final step of the process, which is the sharing.
246
And this can look like a lot of different things.
247
Maybe you're someone who wants to share the work on the internet or in some other public setting.
248
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.
249
Whatever it is, whatever the final end place of the piece is, that's fine.
250
But what you're going to do is you're going to let it go.
251
You're going to let it go.
252
You're going to finish it.
253
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.
254
And you're going to put it away so that you can start the next one.
255
Let's review what we've covered so far.
256
You've created a mental ecosystem.
257
You've quieted your brain so that you can receive ideas, ideas like sparks.
258
Okay.
259
The seed of an idea.
260
It's going to be a gentle tap on the shoulder, not a massive light bulb moment.
261
Okay.
262
Once you receive a seed, you're going to write something down.
263
You're going to write down the spirit of the idea.
264
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...
265
Okay.
266
So you're going to just write that initial thing down and you're going to get into the practice of listening for ideas.
267
You're going to pay attention to your life so that ideas make themselves known to you.
268
The more you do this, the more ideas will come to you.
269
I promise you, this is a flywheel, right?
270
This is a snowball of momentum.
271
And once it's going, and once you feed it, it continues to speed up.
272
And that's what takes the place of your consumption habits because you slowly become quietly addicted to creativity and to ideas.
273
And that is a much better way of living your life in the modern world than chronic consumption.
274
So you write down the initial idea.
275
Then you get in the sandbox.
276
You make a messy, long, very human first draft.
277
I write everything by hand.
278
I recommend you do the same thing.
279
Just get the idea out.
280
Then transcribe it over, whatever.
281
Start editing it.
282
Start refining it.
283
Work your way around the edges.
284
Just slowly find your way in.
285
Face that initial resistance of, it's not good.
286
It's not good.
287
It's not good.
288
Just keep yourself calm.
289
Regulate yourself.
290
Take deep breaths.
291
Edit just the surface level things.
292
And then slowly you start to add material and take stuff out and you're working the piece again.
293
And then finally share it.
294
Give it away.
295
Give it away.
296
It doesn't belong to you anymore.
297
It belongs to the world.
298
Let it go.
299
Move on to the next one.
300
You are a creative living in the modern world.
301
This is what the process looks like.
302
Creativity is a skill set.
303
It is something you can train.
304
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.
305
Run the process.
306
See what you're capable of.
307
See what needs to come out of you release it to the world and then move on to the next one.
Download App
Everything you need to speak fluently
AI PronunciationScore every sentence
IPA PracticeMaster every sound
VocabularyBuild your word bank
Vocab GameLearn while playing
Same Channel
B22
How to write every single day (even if you have no ideas)
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
How I trained my mind to create instead of consume
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B25
How to write like a human being, not a robot
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B29
How I write for 4+ hours a day with no distractions
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2How to replace doomscrolling with creative writing
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2How to become a smart human being in the age of AI
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
FOR YOU
Recommend Video
B22
113 sentences
This Dopamine Trick Will Make You Addicted To Studying
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B26
151 sentences
How I became DISGUSTINGLY DISCIPLINED and got my dream life (you can too)
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B22
57 sentences
How to be a creative motherf***er
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2171 sentences
I Spent 15,000 Hours Studying Hooks. Here’s What I Learned.
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
79 sentences
Why being bored is a good thing
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B21
247 sentences
Train Your Brain to Automatically Reach Your Goals
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
244 sentences
I’m Begging You: Replace Scrolling With These Habits
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B27
73 sentences
How to Never Run Out of Things to Say
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B296 sentences
This Scriptless Speaking Style Is Quietly Blowing Up on YouTube
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
207 sentences
Tips on What to do When You're Feeling Like a Failure (Storytime)
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B22
697 sentences
How To Write Words That Make People Buy (Full Course)
Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students
Why Practice Speaking with This Video?
This video is a goldmine for English learners looking to boost their speaking skills—especially if you love creative topics! The speaker, Josh, uses conversational language that’s easy to follow but packed with natural expressions, making it perfect for shadow speech practice. By mimicking his tone and rhythm, you’ll not only improve your pronunciation but also learn to speak with confidence about personal goals and creative processes. Plus, the topic of replacing scrolling with creativity is relatable, so you’ll stay motivated to practice. It’s a quick win for building fluency while exploring a fun, meaningful subject!
Grammar & Expressions in Context
Let’s break down 3 key phrases from the video to level up your English:
- “I think you’re very likely a creative person.” The phrase “very likely” is a great alternative to “probably” and sounds more natural in casual speech. Use it to express confidence in a guess, like “She’s very likely busy right now.”
- “What ends up happening is you never finish anything.” “Ends up happening” is a common structure to describe a result, especially an unexpected one. Try it: “I meant to study, but I ended up watching TV.”
- “You need to design a life and create a mental ecosystem.” “Design a life” is a vivid, modern expression that shows intentionality. It’s a great example of how English uses creative verbs to make ideas stand out.
Common Pronunciation Traps
Josh’s clear speech makes this video ideal for improving English pronunciation, but watch out for these tricky words:
- “Dopamine” (doh-puh-meen): Don’t rush the “meen” part—stress the second syllable. Practice saying it slowly: “doe-PUH-meen.”
- “Ecosystem” (ee-koh-sis-tum): The “co” is short, like “cot,” not “coat.” Break it down: “EE-koh-sis-tum.”
- “Magnum opus” (mag-nuhm oh-puhs): This Latin phrase means a great work. Stress the first syllable of “magnum” and the second of “opus.”
Use a shadowing site to replay short clips and mimic Josh’s pace—you’ll nail these sounds in no time. Remember, shadow speak is all about repetition, so don’t worry if it takes a few tries. Every practice session gets you closer to sounding natural!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've struggled · haven't met · you've continued |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who are · three, which is · process, which is |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were allowed · being done · be done |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.