Pubscrawls (n. plural).

Scrawls composed in a series of pubs? No. The title was actually suggested by the need to find an agent or publisher who can get MOM, my most recent novel, out there on the shelves. And the sooner the better. From what I read about Second Life (see “Second Earth”) what was meant to be a futuristic novel—I’m not sure I should call MOM “science fiction”—is instead going to read like history.

I tried Second Life a month or two ago. Within seconds, on this maiden visit, I was groped by a bare-naked lassie who abruptly descended from above for the sole purpose, it seems, of greeting me in this very friendly way. Whatever. I discovered that my RAM, or CPU or something, was inadequate to the occasion, and all I could get my avatar to do was shuffle in place till my computer crashed. Yesterday I returned, laptop newly gigged up to the max, and it worked. The virtual world, I mean. I wasn’t sexually assaulted this time, so I don’t know how I would’ve measured up to the occasion. But it didn’t take long to realize that Second Life could get addictive even without this kind of thing. As though e-mail, blogs, browsing the Web, and virtual games weren’t already enough to derail a writer.

Add bits of technology that lie just around the corner, as we see in MOM, and we’ll have virtual worlds so addictive they make crack cocaine seem like broccoli by comparison. At that point we’re going to have to start plugging intravenous feeds into Second Lifers and their ilk, because they aren’t going to want to reemerge into the “real” world just for something to eat, or to get some sleep, or any of those boring old things.