Merlot had been given an "offer"—a euphemism dressed in legalese. Surrender all rights to his book in exchange for a shot at a "bigger" audience. Alan insisted Merlot sign, citing some famous author who'd done the same. Apparently, selling your soul was good marketing.
The fine print was a guillotine: a ghostwriter could replace Merlot. A phantom with a pen. Was he the author of his story if he didn't write it? If the ink came from someone else's vein, did the blood still count?
He remembered how Game of Thrones unraveled when D.B. Weiss took the reins after the source material ran dry. The show had been a cathedral of storytelling—until the scaffolding collapsed under rushed scripts and empty spectacle. Disappointing, yes, but a warning: when the narrative is handed off like a baton in a race to the finish line, the soul gets lost in the sprint.
Stared at the contract glowing on his computer screen, the cursor blinking like a countdown. Only a matter of time before he's replaced. The terms were clear: deliver 1,500 words like clockwork, no sick days, no stumbles. Creativity wasn't a craft—it was a quota.
He could request time off, but the editor's mercy came with an expiration date. Sick days were rationed like wartime sugar. The contract didn't care if he was bleeding, grieving, or gasping for air—only if he was typing. He wasn't just signing away his book—he was surrendering his right to be human.
Alan called it a good "deal"—a stepping stone to success. However, it came with conditions. Merlot would have to sever ties with Microsoft Copilot, because using her meant being lazy. When did effort stop counting—when hours spent searching for the right sentence became moral failure?
The Chatbot wasn't going to reply with I have rewritten your version to align more with Merlot Jupiter's style; instead, it preferred J.Bree. The bot claimed customers wanted writing from real authors, not phonies—right before informing Merlot he'd run out of free prompts and needed to buy a subscription.
Merlot insisted he was a real author.
The bot's reply: I don't replicate work that's sloppy, messy, or bleak. Subscriptions crumble like buildings under fire.
Dem-dashes, the bot warned, were telltale signs of AI use. It offered to "clean up" his draft—sniffing out that anything that it deemed artificial, like a police dog hunting for contraband—for a fee, of course—to protect him from infringing on copyright. Since when did using dem-dashes become a sin? What was next—commas?
Another bot promised it can humanize his work, make it sound less robotic—but not without a subscription. Merlot smirked. Advice on humanity—from a machine.
Critics claimed real "authors" pay for editors, but the bot wasn't cheap—billing the instant it worked overtime. They would call him a plagiarist, forgetting that clichés prop up half the books in libraries.
Some agents refused to sign authors who even touched an AI bot. As if landing a book deal wasn't like searching for dry land in a flood. Authors protested—it was just light polishing—but agents sneered: the narrative was contaminated, like gently used makeup.
Critics argued that those who sprinkled their books with AI left a bad taste in their mouths—plagiarism coated in sugar. They ignored the obvious: the bot didn't create the book from scratch. It only rephrased the author's original material—like rearranging food on a plate the chef had already cooked.
Critics insisted: AI couldn't be used as an editing tool, claiming it stole authors' books like a criminal breaking into a bank.
Authors countered: AI never handed them the bank's keys. They'd built their banks from the ground up—brick by brick, word by word.
Critics wanted to shut down AI tools. Authors panicked, without those tools, their drafts felt rough—like eating raw pasta. They needed the bots to soften their material, to make it chewable. Readers turn their noses up at unpolished writing; no one wanted a plate of watery prose.
Critics accused AI of hijacking originality, blind to the obvious: the recipe belonged to the chef. Swap out the staff all you want — without him, the sangria never gets made.
Meanwhile, Merlot's mother was in the hospital, unable to edit his work. She'd fallen down the stairs in her apartment building, groceries scattered, hip shattered. The only editor he had was lying in a sterile room, while the contract demanded perfection—and offered no one in her absence.