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
- drove
- asked
- setting
- place
- walked
- wrote
- mysterious
- writing
- stuck
- 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
- asked
- balance
- beach
- beautiful
- book
- building
- cairns
- chance
- chinese
- coincidence
- constant
- cosmological
- discomfort
- dogs
- drove
- encounter
- ended
- examples
- explain
- felt
- filter
- friend
- friends
- glue
- guess
- happened
- instances
- kind
- knew
- life
- location
- man
- meaning
- minutes
- mysterious
- ominous
- place
- point
- pristine
- randomly
- reason
- rocks
- scenes
- serendipity
- setting
- stacking
- stacks
- story
- strong
- stuck
- valley
- valleys
- village
- vivid
- walk
- walked
- walking
- writing
- wrote