Mozart's pool ball trick (how he wrote masterpieces on his 1st draft)
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Hi Reader, I’m back with another juicy secret from one of your fellow AI-FREE Writers Club members. This one comes from a kick*ss copywriter (who chose to remain anonymous.) He learned this secret from one of the greatest musical writers to ever live. Legend has it… This composer wrote entire musical masterpieces... ...perfectly... on his first draft... With ZERO rewrites. How? With a simple, yet powerful writing technique I like to call: Mozart’s pool ball trick First, a little background on the idea… According to science, there are two parts of your brain working at all times. Your conscious mind and your subconscious mind. Your conscious mind is what you’re ACTIVELY thinking about and focused on at any given time. Your subconscious is what’s going “behind the scenes”. For example... When you’re doing laundry… Your conscious mind is focused on filling the washer, pouring detergent, and folding clothes. But you know when you’re doing laundry… And a random brain blast pops in your head like you’re Jimmy Neutron? That brain blast didn’t come from nowhere. It came from your subconscious mind. Creativity LIVES in your subconscious mind. The problem? You can’t access your subconscious mind on command. Because if you’re actively thinking about something—like trying to access your subconscious mind—then it’s in your conscious mind. See the dilemma? That’s where Mozart’s pool ball trick comes into play... According to historical accounts, Mozart kept a pool table in his Vienna home. And whenever he wrote music, he would pick up a ball, and throw it against one of the sides. The ball would bounce off the right wall, bounce off the top wall, bounce off the left wall... BACK to him... And he would catch it. Then, he would write one note. And he would do the same thing again. Toss the ball against the right wall... Bounce… bounce… bounce… BACK to him… *catch* Another note. Toss. Bounce… bounce… bounce… *catch* Note. Toss. Bounce… bounce… bounce… *catch* Note. Mozart would do this over and over again until the entire piece of music was finished. That’s how he wrote timeless classics like Eine kleine Nachtmusik and The Marriage of Figaro. (You know the one that goes da... da-DA... da da da da da DA... da... da-DAH... da da da da da DAH...) Why? Think about a pool table. When you bounce a ball off one of the sides… Does it follow the exact same path every time? Of course not! (If it did, playing pool would be PRETTY easy…) The walls of a pool table are designed so that the path of the ball is unpredictable. So what? SO… If Mozart wanted to catch the bouncing ball… He couldn’t just put his hand down in the same place and catch it blindly. He had to FOCUS on the ball! And while his conscious mind was busy focusing on balls… His SUBCONSCIOUS mind was busy writing the next musical note. Pretty smart, right? Now, you might be asking yourself… Are you saying I gotta go buy a pool table and write ONE WORD at a time? And my answer to that would be… DO YOU WANT TO WRITE MOZART-LEVEL MASTERPIECES OR NOT??? Kidding. You don’t need to plop a pool table next to your desk. There’s an easier way to “lubricate” your subconscious mind... (And I credit this trick to the late, great ad writer, Eugene Schwartz.) Set a timer for 33 minutes and 33 seconds. And don't stop writing until that timer ends. Then, when you're done with that sprint... Set a timer for 5 minutes. And “play”! Get up. Stretch. Pet your dog. Do jumping jacks. Have a quick lightsaber duel with your bro. Do ANYTHING that gets your conscious mind off of writing for just 5 minutes. Then, when the 5 minute timer ends… Set 33:33 again… Get back to work... And repeat this process until your masterpiece is finished. That’s the closest you can get to creativity on command. Well, that’s all for this week’s secret. Now, the fun part — time to vote on next week’s secret! As always… The winner gets a free hat, free shoutout + advertising in next week’s newsletter, and their name on the AI-FREE Writers Club Wall of Fame… FOREVER! Talk to you on Friday. -Sven “Mozart would’ve joined the AI-FREE Writers Club” Slattum |
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