In his appreciation of the novelist and screenwriter Michael Crichton, who died a couple of weeks ago, James Fallows passes on this tip:
[Crichton] said he removed complications from his life while writing by having exactly the same food at every meal, so he never had to waste time deciding what to eat.
It's a marvelous idea, and it explains why I haven't yet done anything to justify my MacArthur genius grant. So I'm going to create a list of 100 (500?) possible meals and try them out in rotation, taking notes on my physical and psychological reactions to each one.
Is it better to go vegetarian and remove any feelings of guilt -- as well as bouts of psychosomatic salmonella poisoning -- before I hit the keyboard? Or does eating flesh put me a properly reflective mood in which to tackle life-and-death questions? Will a daily lunch of cottage cheese and ketchup cause me to use a little too much salty language in my writing?
I expect to settle on my perfect meal in 18 or 19 years. After that, I just have to cut back on the four hours it takes for me to decide what to wear each day, then learn Spanglish (our national language by that time), and I'll be ready to start that novel.
