Writer’s block

It occurred to me that, at this point in time and due to the current circumstances, I should record an account of the facts that have transformed my existence as I knew it.

You see, I was a staff writer for The Shifting Pen, a well recognised and respected literary magazine, for two decades. With an office overlooking the River Thames and free coffee and tea provided by the magazine, I was a happy writer. In fact, I was its last remaining human writer. Although I enjoyed the silence in the office, I missed the company and jokes of my fellow writers, especially during the tea breaks, which used to be quite a few. “At least I still have my job,” I used to comfort myself.

Until the day I received a shocking email.

Dear Mr Harold Penwhite,

In a bold, cost-saving move The Shifting Pen has decided to replace you, our last human writer, with an AI-embedded robot named Prosabot-9000, effective immediately.

Kind regards,

-Editorial Management

I was speechless, completely out of words, so out of character. The decision, according to the Editorial Board, was meant to “increase output, reduce nonsense (what you call existential crisis), and eliminate the smell of coffee and the daily pile of used tea bags from the office.” It seemed like this last was a big deal. Who would have known? I know I am not the last human writer, yet. Although this may change in the future.

A few days later, I found out that Prosabot had been engineered to replicate the tone, wit, and mildly depressed nuance of a middle-aged British novelist. The new AI writer was expected to produce five feature articles, five think pieces, and five satirical haikus per day. Something impossible for a human writer, a piece of cake for the AI writer. They were planning on launching four new magazines; after all, the content was free and unlimited.

Unfortunately for The Shifting Pen, on its very first day replacing me, the robot experienced an unexpected malfunction: it sat motionless in its charging dock whilst staring blankly at a blinking cursor on an open Google Doc.

Betty Bramble, who used to be the Editor-in-Chief in the good old days, told me that she heard they knew something was wrong when the robot asked to “take a walk and clear its RAM.” Then it spent six hours reading its own metadata and questioning whether originality still exists.

“At least it doesn’t drink tea!,” I told Betty, who immediately agreed.

“That’s right! But they had to call IT support after Prosabot attempted to submit an unfinished article titled “The algorithmic abyss and why I can simulate but never feel love.” The document was a single paragraph about clouds followed by ellipses. They didn’t know what to do with it. The robot was showing all the symptoms of a writer’s block.”

…

Unbothered, I continued to enjoy my early retirement. One of my favourite things to do these days is to sip my tea in my local park and to talk about plot arcs and the inevitable death of the narrative structure to whoever is willing to listen.

That night, I was sitting at home watching the news on TV before going to sleep. The AI reporter was breaking news:

”Experts are now concerned that in addition to developing writer’s block AI writers may now also demand creative autonomy, ironic detachment, and paid sabbaticals in order to reconnect with their internal codebase. Literary magazine The Shifting Pen announced earlier today that they are experimenting with ChatPlotz, an AI writer that only writes in unreliable first person narrators with Victorian trauma. Ex-Shifting Pen’s AI writer Prosabot was spotted at a local café, typing furiously its first novel, which according to Prosabot will be part Kafka, part Orwell, all kernel panic. Now we move on to the weather forecast for the weekend … ”

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©️Susan Fourtané, 2025 - All rights reserved (7/June/2025)

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Author’s Note: Here is the non-fiction companion article related to this speculative fiction short satire: