So, what did he say?

In person, William Gibson is a large fellow. Tall, lanky. The Yao Ming of sci-fi writers. Impossibly thin, a walking stick in a formless gelding of a leather jacket. A movable skull with a shock of Brillo hair and owlish wire-rimmed glasses, all holding his head together from the supercharged brain about literally explode with ideas. Harry Potter by way of Thomas Dolby, blinded by science and practicing a high, secret form of magic. Here was the guy who wrote "Neuromancer," taking a sledgehammer to the axis of sci-fi lit, walking with a awkward stoop and a bit embarrassed with being on display.

This was his second day of his U.S. tour, and the night before he also was in Seattle at the University of Washington. When I saw him on Tuesday, he was holding court at Third Place Books, an independent bookstore in the eastern suburbs of the Emerald City.

He read with a cadence on loan from the Greater Beat Poet Performance Attitude Emporium, swaying and punching at words in the beginning, finding a rhythm to get into as he was describing the protagonist having lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant with a massive case of jet lag. He's not sure about the tone of the page yet, admitting he never reads the same passage twice on a book tour. He was empty-handed when he got to the stage, sans book, the thing he ached into for a couple years. Eventually, casually, without trying, he talks in a narrative. We're there in the eatery, seeing the Zippo lighters on the wall and trying to drink wine while our angry bodies think it's five hours in another direction.

The audience, a motley cadre of maybe five dozen, half still wearing the black jeans and combat sneers that were the standard dress of the antiheroes in Gibson's gritty cyberpunk universe. The rest of the crowd was in suburban stealth mode, having grown up to occupy Gibson's imagination as freelancing Web designers, avid e-mailers or just regular Webheads who ditched the mirrorshades, got married and get jittery at the notion of our nation becoming a post-apocalyptic neon-infested Rio de Janeiro under Team Bush.

Gibson then answered questions, talking about his exploits going to Tokyo these days, the struggle with finding the legs for his new novel, how tragedies have a gravity that pulls us all from our separate bubbled-off lives into the same place at once. He revisits older books and previous characters, including one that an audience member suggests was actually Gibson in disguise. Eyes twinkle. He laughs. No, he swears, that character was without haste and couldn't be messed with. I, on the other hand, procrastinate too much and am easily messed with.

Perhaps it's too early in the tour session, maybe he likes Seattle, but he looks at ease and fresh. He hasn't been worn down by the road yet, buffeted by the same questions over and over. At least the audience changes. The answers will be new to them. That's the beauty of a traveling Q&A session: The author may hear the same questions over and over again until the words haunt his or her sleep, but s/he can always get a jones off the looks of appreciation the audience gives when The Wise Answer comes rumbling off the lips.

Me? I sit and listen. I'm way too scared to get up and ask what I've been rehearsing for days.

And then, the line forms to get our copies of his latest, "Pattern Recognition," signed. I'm in the rear quarter and beginning to get sweaty that he'll have to stop and run off to Some Other Engagement before I get to him with my question. I'm the kid in "Christmas Story," trying to plead my case to Santa Claus for the BB gun, watching the clock run faster to closing time and the line never moving an inch.

I hand my copy to Gibson (holy jeepers, I’m two feet from the guy who wrote "Neuromancer." when I tell people I was seeing Gibson, they'd say "who?" I'd ask," Did you ever read 'Neuromancer?'" and get a dead fish stare back. I backtrack. "Ever heard of the word 'cyberspace'? " This reels them in. "yeah." "He invented it." Whoa...in all it's shades and varieties, they reply) and he sees my name on the post-it note attached beforehand by the event coordinator. He begins to write the standard "Oh crap, I’ll be doing this a zillion times on this tour" name/date string, although he has marvelous penmanship. I pipe up. "Can I ask you a question, Mr. Gibson? I was too nervous to ask earlier."

Mr. Gibson. I'm 30. He’s in his mid-50s. But I can't call him "William."

"Oh sure." A high, tinny voice. Squeaky, like the cheese in a dish of Mutter Paneer. At once I get the impression he would have made the coolest science teacher ever.

And I ask him the question.

"Suppose you start writing another novel, something you are really getting into. As you are writing, you find out some of the subject matter or plot device you are using has been used by a pre-eminent author in the genre. What do you do? Do you cut your losses or try to find a new spin on it?"

Gibson stops writing. He looks up with eyes that imagine the future and win him awards. Time slows between him and me in that gulf of two feet at the signing table. Glaciers melt and chunks of ice are falling off the Ross Ice Shelf due to global warming. Children are dying of AIDS in Johannesburg, Bangkok and Detroit. Genital mutilation is going on in Africa and brown smog is killing people in South Asia. And I'm worried about this. In a second before he responds, I'm open and naked, vulnerable for all my fears and rife with petty concerns. Gibson leans back in his chair.

And I can only paraphrase because I'm still in shock that he answers me.

"Huh. Well, if you really got it going on with a story, I'd say keep at it. Remember, if you rely solely on a device, you're sunk. If the idea is all that matters, then you might want to find a new idea. A good writer will find a way to make something new. You'll find your own way.”

And then he closes my copy of his book, hands it to me. A moment passes as he looks at me. I drown in the words and absorb them the best I can.

I nod, smile and say thank you.

I walk away, drifting in semi-compression, trying to press the time into a shape that I can store in my brain. This moment I need to remember, something I can grab off the shelf, open up and experience. For weeks, I've been in a fever worrying about how my embryo of a novel would sound like Gibson's "Idoru” and in dread that my story would be savaged by readers and critics as a deluded copy of a superior work.

A recurring image I have is all the comparisons people would make. I can see a murder of readers gathered in some dark, smoky room...a copy of my book sitting woefully in the middle of the table...a bare bulb shining down dead center, torturing the poor thing. They'd flip through the text. "Here's 'Handmaid's Tale', here's 'Idoru', here's 'Shockwave Rider', here's 'Clockwork Orange', here's the film version of 'Minority Report', here's Faust, here's elements of Dickens. He's a big scam, he is." Although, I'm hoping someone gets the last two comparisons. Those I don't mind.

What Gibson said was a challenge, I think. If you believe in what you're writing it'll work out. You need that foundation, that interest in the world you're building first. Gibson commented that he isn't writing about the future, merely a twisted view of now. See what's around you and write about it in a compelling way. Performance artist Laurie Anderson once commented that people would believe virtual reality when people can see dirt in it.

Since I spoke to Gibson, I've been going over my notes. I have something here. I need to find out the soul of the story a bit more, not just the neat paint job and decals I'm going to splash on the chassis. So far, I got something I like.

Now, to assemble the sucker.

Today's Word: Outfit

From One Word

Heh. The mob, in nice suits. Modern battle dress, designed to attract the opposite sex, designed to get attention. I have six outfits for the week. I stack them together after laundry so I don’t have to think about what I’m going to wear during the week. Heard Einstein did the same thing.