Shadowing Elizabeth Gilbert

Summary

Elizabeth Gilbert reflects on how the extraordinary success of Eat, Pray, Love changed her relationship with writing. Questions about whether she could ever repeat that success made her reconsider the pressure placed on creative people. She proposes treating inspiration as a partner outside the self, drawing on ancient ideas of a guiding creative spirit. The practical purpose is to keep working without making either praise or disappointment a verdict on one's entire identity.

Key points, in order

1. Gilbert challenges the familiar association between artistic work and suffering. She wants a way to protect a writer's willingness to continue when public expectations become overwhelming.
2. Her account of Greek and Roman creative spirits separates the maker from the mysterious element of the result. She presents that distance as protection against both excessive pride and excessive blame.
3. Stories about poet Ruth Stone and musician Tom Waits illustrate inspiration arriving unpredictably. Waits's response to a melody while driving gives Gilbert a model for addressing inspiration without surrendering to anxiety.
4. During a difficult stretch of writing, she tries a similar conversation and recommits to doing her part. The conclusion values showing up for the work even when an exceptional moment of inspiration or public acclaim never arrives.

Five useful phrases to practise

Choose a caption line to open Repeat mode. Listen, then say it after the speaker.

1. 2:20 Is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this Earth to do.
2. 5:24 I would prefer to keep doing this work that I love.
3. 8:22 And I got to tell you, I think that was a huge error.
4. 15:22 I'm going to keep writing anyway because that's my job.
5. 18:29 Don't be daunted. Just do your job.

Based on the video’s captions. Original video: Your elusive creative genius | Elizabeth Gilbert · TED.

Everyday phrases from this video

• how's it going
• take care
• not at all
• why not
• all of a sudden

• Level: B2
• Accent: American
• Length: 19 min · 241 lines to practise
• Speed: about 184 words a minute (faster than most talks)
• Words: about 3,500; the talk asks 33 questions
• Timing: Sada measures how far behind the speaker you are on every line

What to focus on in this talk

Clear, expressive storytelling. “Recalibrate” (ree-KAL-ih-brate) and “peculiar” (pih-KYOOL-yer) are worth a few tries each, and “decidedly unlike any of my previous books” is a good line for linking words without losing any.

What this talk trains

Elizabeth Gilbert speaks for about 19 minutes: roughly 3,500 words in 241 caption lines. The pace stays fairly even, about 176 words a minute in the first quarter and 179 in the last. Overall it is faster than 55 of the other 66 talks on Sada. Its sentences average 20.1 words, longer than the middle of the library (14.3), and 15.0% of its words fall outside the 3,000 most common English words (library middle: 12.9%). It asks 33 questions, so there is plenty of question intonation to copy. Phrases that fast speech often shortens come up again and again: “sort of” (16 times) and “going to” (15 times).

Lines from across the talk, and what each one trains

One line from each quarter of the talk. Press a line to open it in Sada, ready to record. “Linking” marks words that run together: a word ending in a consonant sound joins the vowel that starts the next one.

1. 1:34 And people would say, "Aren't you afraid you're never going to have any success?

   “going to”: fast speech often shortens it to “gonna” when a verb follows. Listen for whether the speaker does here. A question: listen to where the voice rises or falls at the end, and copy it.

2. 6:59 They believed that a genius was this, sort of magical divine entity,

   “sort of”: fast speech often shortens it to “sorta”. Listen for whether the speaker does here. Linking: say “that a”, “sort of” without a break between the words.

3. 12:12 And I would imagine that a lot of you have too.

   “a lot of”: fast speech often shortens it to “a lotta”. Listen for whether the speaker does here. Linking: say “And I”, “would imagine”, “that a” without a break between the words.

4. 15:22 I'm going to keep writing anyway because that's my job.

   “going to”: fast speech often shortens it to “gonna” when a verb follows. Listen for whether the speaker does here. One of the quicker lines: about 224 words a minute by the caption timing, against 184 for the whole talk.

Words that keep coming up

Words outside the 3,000 most common English words that Elizabeth Gilbert uses more than once. The number is how often each is said. Look up any you don’t know, then press it to practise the line where it first comes up.

• afraid ×10
• genius ×9
• creativity ×7
• ancient ×6
• divine ×6
• poem ×6
• peculiar ×3
• doomed ×3

How the pace changes through the talk

The fastest minute starts at 10:33 (about 246 words a minute): practise that minute once the rest feels easy. The slowest starts at 18:15 (about 142): a good minute to warm up with.

Measured from the caption timing, so the numbers are close, not exact.

How the talk opens: press any line to practise it

1. 0:13 I am a writer.
2. 0:14 Writing books is my profession but it's more than that, of course.
3. 0:18 It is also my great lifelong love and fascination.
4. 0:22 And I don't expect that that's ever going to change.
5. 0:25 But, that said, something kind of peculiar has happened recently in my life and in my career,
6. 0:32 which has caused me to have to recalibrate my whole relationship with this work.

How to practise this talk

1. Warm up on the slowest minute (from 18:15) or on the opening lines above.
2. Then take the chosen lines above one at a time: a shortened phrase, a question, linked words, a quick line.
3. On each line, press Record and say it after Elizabeth Gilbert (Repeat) or along with them (Shadow), then open Compare and go again until every word is green.
4. Save the fastest minute (from 10:33, about 246 words a minute) for last.
5. At one minute a day you finish the whole talk in about 19 days, and Sada shows your first try against your latest.

More talks to practise

• Elizabeth Gilbert — Success, Failure and the Drive to Keep Creating (B2–C1 · 210 words a minute · same speaker)
• Adam Grant — Are You a Giver or a Taker? (B2 · 186 words a minute · same level)
• J.J. Abrams — The Mystery Box (B2 · 179 words a minute · same level)
• Cameron Russell — Looks Aren’t Everything. Believe Me, I’m a Model. (B1 · 184 words a minute · same accent)

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