Mr. Cyberpunk, William Gibson, the science-fiction author who coined the term, isn’t very cyberpunk:
On a short walk to lunch one afternoon, from the two-story mock-Tudor house where he lives with his wife, Deborah, he complained about a recent visit from a British journalist, who came to Vancouver searching for “Mr. Cyberpunk” and was disappointed to find him ensconced in a pleasantly quiet suburban patch of central Vancouver. Mr. Cyberpunk seemed wounded by having his work pigeonholed, but equally so by the insult to his home, which is quite comfortable, and his neighborhood, which is, too. “We like it quiet,” he explained.
He sounds a bit like Neal Stephenson’s neo-Victorians, really. This bit sounds rather more SWPL:
When I’m writing a book I get up at seven. I check my e-mail and do Internet ablutions, as we do these days. I have a cup of coffee. Three days a week, I go to Pilates and am back by ten or eleven. Then I sit down and try to write. If absolutely nothing is happening, I’ll give myself permission to mow the lawn. But, generally, just sitting down and really trying is enough to get it started. I break for lunch, come back, and do it some more. And then, usually, a nap. Naps are essential to my process.
Well, he seems like a well-disciplined, well-adjusted guy, but somehow it’s hard to see Fitzgerald or Hemingway or even Heinlein going to Pilates and giving himself “permission” to go crazy and mow the lawn.