On The Assassination Of National Novel Writing Month
Ethical Dilemmas. ~700 words, 2 minute read. With ChatGPT.
The death threat came in a glittery envelope.
Samantha tilted it carefully. Pink shimmer caught the light, dancing like it had somewhere better to be. Inside was a note, scrawled in blue ink with the frantic energy of someone used to angrily typing instead using a pen.
“Rot in algorithmically generated hell, you corporate parasite.”
She held it up to Ezra, who was cradling his iced coffee like it was his emotional support animal.
“Do we think the glitter was meant to soften the sentiment?”
He didn’t look up. “Maybe it’s ironic. Like a funeral in sequins.”
The third day would be worse than the first.
The backlash hadn’t flared and faded. It had deepened. Hardened. Like concrete setting around her ankles. Most of all, it had infiltrated every nook and crack, cranny and crevice of the Inkwell literary magazine staff.
Half the editorial board was gone. Resigned, ghosted, rage-posted. The inbox churned nonstop with canceled subscriptions, inflammatory YouTube links, and a handful of authors threatening lawsuits over the mere proximity of their work to AI-generated fiction.
One subject line just read: YOU HAVE NO SOUL. Another was a Bible verse, taken deeply out of context (she had checked).
Across the quiet office floor, Caitlyn from Events typed like a hostage filing her taxes.
Samantha tapped her pen against the desk. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Her inbox pinged again.
Ezra scrolled, grimacing.
“You’re now trending under #InkwellIsInHell. Also #BotWitch, which is kind of punk.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What happened to #KeepLitHuman?”
“That one got overtaken by the conspiracy people. There was a diagram involving a certain private island.”
Samantha pushed back from her desk, stood, and walked to the window.
Below, the street was alive in its usual cracked rhythm—delivery vans double-parked, pigeons swarming a pretzel cart, a man screaming about fluoride.
“I don’t regret it,” she said. “Just wish it made people less... feral.”
Ezra glanced up. “We could issue a clarification. Say we’re only accepting partial AI input. Minimal usage. Soften the message.”
She shook her head. “We already ran the simulation. Remember?”
“No?”
“Last fall. Blind reads. We pseudonymously submitted five stories written by AI. The editors didn’t spot the AI use. Two made that month’s shortlist.”
Ezra blinked.
She didn’t look away from the window. “No one noticed. That’s the point.”
Silence.
Then—
“So we’ve probably already published machine-assisted fiction,” he said.
“There’s no avoiding it.” She replied. “We had to begin allowing it—or be made hypocrites.”
The phone rang.
Her desk phone, not her cell. That never rang anymore.
She picked it up. “Samantha Reyes.”
A pause. Then: “It’s Wallace. From the board.”
She sat.
Wallace’s voice was careful, clipped. “You’ve seen the numbers.”
“I have.”
“And the coverage.”
“Also seen.”
“We’re not saying you have to cancel the policy. But we’re... strongly advising a retraction. Public-facing. For optics.”
A beat.
“If you don’t, we’ll need to reevaluate your contract at next month’s meeting.”
Samantha’s gaze drifted to the window again.
To the pigeons. To the man screaming. To the pretzel cart steam wafting up like a signal flare from Earth’s most absurd war zone.
She didn’t raise her voice.
“I appreciate the call,” she said. “But I’m not walking it back.”
Wallace sighed like someone stepping around a mess they didn’t want to acknowledge. “Then I suggest you get ahead of the narrative.”
“Too late.”
She hung up.
Ezra was watching her now, carefully. “That sounded... decisive.”
“They’re threatening to fire me,” she said. “Unless I reverse it.”
“And?”
“And I told them no.”
He let out a breath. “You really are gonna go down with this ship.”
“If it sinks, maybe it deserves to.”
Back at her desk, she opened the portal.
Submissions had tripled. Some were obvious spam, others unreadable screeds. But a few—
A few shimmered.
She clicked one.
Opened the file.
Read the first line.
Paused.
Then kept reading.
And didn’t stop.
Curious how much is AI? Read the prompts here.