The First Word I Didn't Write

I couldn’t come up with “unsettling”.

The sentence was incomplete, the cursor blinked at the end of the line while I stared blankly at the white space. I had “strange”, “bizarre”, “unusual”, but none of those words felt right. I knew there was another one, a perfect word that would complete my paragraph, but I just couldn’t find it.

It was late, I was tired, I was supposed to submit the file that afternoon, but I had procrastinated too long and had been forced to beg my boss for an extension. He hadn’t been pleased, but he gave it to me anyway, on the condition that the next day, as soon as he walked into the office, he would find my email in his inbox.

My eyes were burning. Seriously, I couldn’t take working on that document anymore. So I did something I had never thought to do before.

I opened the AI window in my browser, just to be sure, just to see if it could find that exact word I had in mind, but couldn’t form.

> Give me a synonym for “strange” in a horror context.

The first word it suggested was “unsettling”. It was right, that was exactly the word I was looking for.

I submitted the work and finally went to sleep.

I had never used artificial intelligence before. Not for work, at least. I was convinced that, in its current state, the texts generated by a language model weren’t even remotely comparable to those written by a human. AI didn’t possess the finesse, nor the touch, that makes written text so fascinating.

Yet the word it had suggested was spot-on. Perfect, even.

After all, it was like looking up a synonym in a dictionary, without the hassle of getting up, taking it off the shelf, searching the word under the correct letter, or, more simply, without having to spend ten minutes opening online sites full of pop-ups and ads just to find the word of the day insert and its synonyms.

It wasn’t cheating. It was simply doing something I could have done manually, but much faster and more efficiently. And isn’t it a human virtue to make a long and tedious process quicker and more efficient? I think so.

There were many such shortcuts that I later discovered I could use.

Asking for a list of synonyms was just trimming, a small, almost insignificant aspect of the final result of a story. But there were many others that could use a little help from artificial intelligence.

Nothing too serious, just a push in the right direction, a small adjustment, a nuance.

For example, did you know that artificial intelligence is perfect for brainstorming? You know when you have an idea, but it’s not too defined, and you need to jot down an endless series of other small ideas before finding, in the middle of a mountain of trash, a convincing thread? Well, that’s a process that takes days, sometimes even weeks or months if it’s a significant project, but with AI you can do it in five minutes.

Of course, then you still have to write. But you can’t deny that it saves a lot of time.

If you’ve been writing for many years like I have, you know there are aspects of the process that are terribly boring. Like drafting an outline. I’ve always hated outlines, I prefer to write following the creative flow, but it’s hard to stay coherent without at least a rough plan for how the story should progress. I hate to admit it, but they’re necessary.

I’m good with ideas, I’m a conceptual mind, I definitely don’t want to waste my time with frustrating preparatory activities. I’ve always wished someone could take care of that for me, so I could focus only on the more artistic side of writing.

Which, by the way, is the hardest part to manage. It’s not enough to have a good idea and a solid outline to automatically become a writer. It takes passion, it takes dedication, you have to invest a lot of time in it. It’s a delicate craft not everyone can do.

Anyway, with AI taking care of brainstorming and outlines – the part of the process that took up the most time – I managed, for the first time in years, to meet my deadlines. No more sleepless nights finishing a document, no more emails begging for a few extra hours. I had finally rediscovered the joy of writing, like I used to, when I wrote for fun, with no constraints or goals to achieve. Pure and simple writing in its freest, most artistic form.

For me, it was incredible how a single line entered in an AI chat could relieve me of so much work. It was like having an assistant who took care of exactly what annoyed me most, only I could contact them whenever I wanted, at any time of day or night, and ask them for pretty much anything.

I had also started using it to fix certain passages. Only the ones that gave me the most trouble, only when I felt stuck. It happened one evening, while revising one of my drafts, I realized a paragraph was slow, clunky, hard to read. I had rewritten it at least twenty times, yet I couldn’t be satisfied with it. So I copied and pasted it and rewrote it with AI.

> This paragraph is disjointed, can you rewrite it more smoothly?

I only did it with that part. Then with the next one too.

At first, I felt guilty, I kept staring at the page, with the two AI-written parts right there in the middle, in plain sight. As if they were highlighted in neon yellow, the first proof of the crime I had committed. I feared my boss would send the document back, criticizing and humiliating me for being caught using artificial intelligence. But nothing happened. Nothing happened at all, actually. Not that time, nor the times after.

I tried to convince myself it wasn’t that bad. I was the one giving it the input. I was the one deciding the style, the tone, the rhythm of the scene. Artificial intelligence was just a tool, an extension of my intentions. If I hadn’t had those ideas, it wouldn’t have been able to create those texts. It was like a good editor, just tidying up what I had created.

I truly convinced myself of that.

The next time, I just started that way.

> Write a scene in which the protagonist realizes his wife has cheated on him.

The AI wrote, I read. Sometimes I cut something, moved a piece, changed a word. More often, I left everything as it was.

Every time I submitted a piece, I hoped someone would catch me, that someone would tell me to stop. That it wasn’t right, even immoral. Those works weren’t mine.

Over time, I stopped writing the preliminary drafts altogether.

I’d start a new story, jot down the general idea, then let it develop it. I’d step in here and there, to still feel part of the process, but deep down what was written wasn’t me, and I didn’t recognize myself in the texts that were published under my name. It was as if, all of a sudden, I couldn’t see my reflection in the mirror anymore.

But it was so easy. So, so much easier. I had never had so much free time, so much empty space to fill. Before, my life had been devoured by my work, but now that it took up such a tiny portion of my days, I had nothing left.

I told myself I wouldn’t do it next time, that I’d sit at my desk and write like I used to. No pressure, no deadlines. I’d draft an outline, jot down a bunch of ideas, write a rough draft.

But I never did. The prospect was too tempting, every time I tried to write on my own I got irritated, impatient, and ended up opening the AI window.

One day, I sat at the kitchen table. It was Sunday, the beginning of summer, I had submitted my last work on time and didn’t have to do anything else. I wanted to write, for my own pleasure, not for a publication, not to earn a paycheck.

I opened the blank file, just me and the white page, like I hadn’t done in months. I felt at peace, I felt calm.

But then, the void. Nothing came, not even a line, not even a word.

I realized I no longer knew how to start a story, how to construct a dialogue, how to build tension. Nothing, my mind was dormant, I stared at the blank page as if, opening the door to my childhood room, I was surprised to find it empty.

I had been the one to take everything from that room, piece by piece, and now there was nothing left. I had never felt so much horror in my life.

I didn’t know how to write anymore.