full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Amy Tan: Where does creativity hide?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Another chance eocenntur is when I went to a place — I just was with some friends, and we drvoe randomly to a different place, and we ended up in this non-tourist location, a beautiful village, pristine. And we wkeald three valleys beyond, and the third valley, there was something quite mutyisoers and ominous, a discomfort I felt. And then I knew that had to be [the] sietntg of my book. And in writing one of the scenes, it happened in that third valley. For some reason I wotre about cairns — stacks of rocks — that a man was building. And I didn't know exactly why I had it, but it was so vivid. I got sctuk, and a friend, when she aeskd if I would go for a walk with her dogs, that I said, sure. And about 45 minutes later, walking along the beach, I came across this. And it was a man, a Chinese man, and he was stacking these things, not with glue, not with anything. And I asked him, "How is it possible to do this?" And he said, "Well, I guess with everything in life, there's a pclae of balance." And this was exactly the meaning of my story at that point. I had so many examples — I have so many instances like this, when I'm writing a story, and I cannot explain it. Is it because I had the filter that I have such a strong coincidence in wnitrig about these things? Or is it a kind of serendipity that we cannot explain, like the cosmological constant?

Open Cloze

Another chance _________ is when I went to a place — I just was with some friends, and we _____ randomly to a different place, and we ended up in this non-tourist location, a beautiful village, pristine. And we ______ three valleys beyond, and the third valley, there was something quite __________ and ominous, a discomfort I felt. And then I knew that had to be [the] _______ of my book. And in writing one of the scenes, it happened in that third valley. For some reason I _____ about cairns — stacks of rocks — that a man was building. And I didn't know exactly why I had it, but it was so vivid. I got _____, and a friend, when she _____ if I would go for a walk with her dogs, that I said, sure. And about 45 minutes later, walking along the beach, I came across this. And it was a man, a Chinese man, and he was stacking these things, not with glue, not with anything. And I asked him, "How is it possible to do this?" And he said, "Well, I guess with everything in life, there's a _____ of balance." And this was exactly the meaning of my story at that point. I had so many examples — I have so many instances like this, when I'm writing a story, and I cannot explain it. Is it because I had the filter that I have such a strong coincidence in _______ about these things? Or is it a kind of serendipity that we cannot explain, like the cosmological constant?

Solution

  1. drove
  2. asked
  3. setting
  4. place
  5. walked
  6. wrote
  7. mysterious
  8. writing
  9. stuck
  10. encounter

Original Text

Another chance encounter is when I went to a place — I just was with some friends, and we drove randomly to a different place, and we ended up in this non-tourist location, a beautiful village, pristine. And we walked three valleys beyond, and the third valley, there was something quite mysterious and ominous, a discomfort I felt. And then I knew that had to be [the] setting of my book. And in writing one of the scenes, it happened in that third valley. For some reason I wrote about cairns — stacks of rocks — that a man was building. And I didn't know exactly why I had it, but it was so vivid. I got stuck, and a friend, when she asked if I would go for a walk with her dogs, that I said, sure. And about 45 minutes later, walking along the beach, I came across this. And it was a man, a Chinese man, and he was stacking these things, not with glue, not with anything. And I asked him, "How is it possible to do this?" And he said, "Well, I guess with everything in life, there's a place of balance." And this was exactly the meaning of my story at that point. I had so many examples — I have so many instances like this, when I'm writing a story, and I cannot explain it. Is it because I had the filter that I have such a strong coincidence in writing about these things? Or is it a kind of serendipity that we cannot explain, like the cosmological constant?

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
van gogh 2
temporal lobe 2
mother believed 2
gonna find 2
moral ambiguity 2
famous chinese 2

Important Words

  1. asked
  2. balance
  3. beach
  4. beautiful
  5. book
  6. building
  7. cairns
  8. chance
  9. chinese
  10. coincidence
  11. constant
  12. cosmological
  13. discomfort
  14. dogs
  15. drove
  16. encounter
  17. ended
  18. examples
  19. explain
  20. felt
  21. filter
  22. friend
  23. friends
  24. glue
  25. guess
  26. happened
  27. instances
  28. kind
  29. knew
  30. life
  31. location
  32. man
  33. meaning
  34. minutes
  35. mysterious
  36. ominous
  37. place
  38. point
  39. pristine
  40. randomly
  41. reason
  42. rocks
  43. scenes
  44. serendipity
  45. setting
  46. stacking
  47. stacks
  48. story
  49. strong
  50. stuck
  51. valley
  52. valleys
  53. village
  54. vivid
  55. walk
  56. walked
  57. walking
  58. writing
  59. wrote