Finding the Spirit to Write in the Shadow of the AI Age

A fiction writer's reflection of the good ol' days.

This article was originally published on my Substack account on Jun 02, 2026.

The birds are chirping outside, and I can hear their chatter through my open window. The spring breeze blows into my office, fresh and warm, where I sit, the radio playing rock music (if you are interested). The ice in my water has long since melted, and condensation slowly drips down the glass. The time is two o’clock sharp in the afternoon, and I can smell my fiancé burning toast downstairs.

It is a lovely day to write a story, as every day once was when creativity was still a special something.

I wrote my first story when I was five years old – it was only a few lines, but I’m chuffed to call it a story nonetheless. My affinity for laconic text remains, as I am on the cusp of a journey to self-publish a collection of short gothic stories titled Nights.

Five-year-old me desperately wanted to be a writer, as did fifteen-year-old me and twenty-five-year-old me. Now 29, I have joyfully worked as a copywriter for over six years, and I still feel awash with pride when I say, ‘I’m a writer. What do you do?’

I don’t think Little Em would have believed she’d ever become a writer. Despite having pictured the moment when I would publish my short story collection for over two decades, it felt too magical to be reality. Little Em truly believed her writing was unassailable: uniquely hers, and unique to her. When people tell me that I am a ‘good writer,’ all I can muster is, ‘Thanks… I was born like this.’

As I made my way through life, I wrote, and I didn’t. I am sure many fellow storytellers can relate.

The moment I learnt to write at school was the point of no return. In the late 2000s, I (painstakingly slowly) typed out many never-to-be-continued first pages on my grandparents’ old computer, exclusively used for my ‘Chapter Ones’ and my grandad’s offline solitaire. All four of my grandparents were my biggest cheerleaders, always providing the kind of unconditional support a kid needs.

I loved sleepovers with my brother and sister, especially on Christmas Eve. They were my first loyal fans, and would ask me to tell them stories while they drifted off to sleep. I took them on journeys through fantasy lands and beyond while they snuggled up next to me. I hand-wrote pages upon pages of adventures for my sister over the years, and they were always about fairies and always paired with a painting of the protagonist. I’m sure she still has them all, tucked away somewhere safe.

I distinctly remember a family holiday when I was about twelve, sharing a room with my sister that we claimed because of the indoor hammock (a marvel!) that hung from the bedroom ceiling. Whilst we lounged together in this incredible contraption, I spun her a sharks-lava-pirates tale so ferocious and terrifying that she screamed, cried, and my dad came running in. I think that was the first and last time I was ever told off for my overactive imagination.

As many creative writers did, I naively thought things would never change.

All those stories that were uniquely mine, born from and existing in my mind, seemed to be so safe. The last pure moment of creative joy I can remember was in January 2021, in the throes of the Lockdown Era, as it shall henceforth be known.

I sat in my dad’s garden, notebook balanced on knee, sipping green tea, while the snow pummeled to the ground around me. In case any overseas readers don’t know: in England’s West Midlands, we don’t get much snow. A whiteout once or twice a year isn’t unusual, but on this occasion, the flakes fell so thickly that the scenery was blanched in a matter of minutes. I enjoyed a peaceful afternoon and whittled away at what I called in draft ‘story 3,’ now renamed ‘Death is a Dream State’ in my upcoming collection.

I wish I could share this moment with you, but it exists only as a happy memory. (Speaking of which, have any sci-fi folks written a story about memory transference? I’d love to edit it for you.)

Despite how I am painting the winter picture, my joy didn’t come from the once-in-a-lifetime snowfall. It came from the freedom of writing simply to write, and the bliss of being present in the moment with my creativity. When was your last rare moment of connection with storytelling?

Because that was in 2021. Now, as we sit here in 2026, creative writing makes me cry. In the blink of an eye, in what has felt like a singular tick in time, the way we write fiction is no longer uniquely ours. I am not here to write an opinion piece about AI because plenty already exist. Rather, I feel compelled to moan.

I haven’t seen snowfall like that since. I consider the moment to have been a pathetic fallacy of sorts, representing that ‘special something’ bygone. Nowadays, I sit in cafes, bars and my greyed-out office to write, in company with the birds outside my window and my computer.

Deep inside, I am worried that writing creatively doesn’t feel fun anymore, since ChatGPT can absorb our thinking in an instant. Many fiction writers are living in a state of flux: unable to accessthe imagination that they once owned outright.

The ‘shadow’ in the title’s statement is the one cast by the rising sun, not that of the dusk. Yet that isn’t stopping me, and I am about to release my stories into the ether. Like, for real. I am encouraging everyone who cares about storytelling to join me; we must rally together with our overactive imaginations and our inborn wordsmithery to keep the confidence in creative writing alive for decades to come, even if the sun is setting.

Here is my plea: share your story projects with strangers in the comments. Tell bedtime tales to your toddlers. Fawn over folklore when you’re in a museum. Roll over to your partner and ask if they want to hear something scary before they go to sleep. Walk along the fells and imagine what happened there a thousand years ago. Pick a word, any word, and smush it into a sentence. Find an old journal and start your own personal dictionary of cool expressions, then use them in random everyday situations.

‘Here’s your iced latte with oat milk.’

‘Gramercy, my worthy freend.’

How I’m Feeling

Could the rise of AI in creative industries be reflected in this excerpt from my story ‘Death is a Dream State’ (taken from my upcoming self-publishing project, Nights)?

Look into the shadow and see my figure in the silhouette. You can never escape me, for I am always with you. I am the gasp of cold air. I filled your lungs at the moment of your first breath; I hold you close midst the lonesome days and the empty nights. I am part of you, and I will be until the beginning of the end. I haunt you, but I am no ghost. If you try to cheat me, I will hunt you, for I am the hunter, the preyer, the thief and the slayer. I am the Panoptes of this chasmous chamber of demise. You are privy to the fact that I see what must be seen, and I know what must be known. My eyes, though dark with detachment, are in relentless pursuit of you, for I am the guardian of everything.

(Copyright: E Walton, Nights)

… What do you think?

If you like this excerpt, I am knuckling down to self-publish the rest, and I’ll share everything I learn in my Substack.

What I’m Reading

I purchased White Nights by Dostoevsky from Heron Books in Bristol, UK. I am a huge fan of Dostoevsky, and The Double is one of my favourites. A quick Google search told me WhiteNights was about a lonely man; I tend to write about loneliness myself, so I’m excited to start reading.

In fact, the first story in my upcoming collection is called ‘A Study of Loneliness,’ and it is about an insomniac who can see ghouls taunting people in their sleep. If I told you that I wrote it when I was a student living alone in France in 2017, overwhelmed for the first time by stress-induced sleep paralysis, taunted by the isolation of a small town, the lack of social life and a yearning for the fun-loving year-abroad adventures that everyone except me seemed to be getting, would the short story’s plot make more sense?

Anyway, I digress. I am secretly hoping that White Nights is similar to Nabokov’s Pnin, which I absolutely love. I recommend Pnin to those who enjoy playful, well-woven literary fiction.

I will report back about White Nights, and I hope some readers of this post (other than my sister!) report back to me about Pnin.

What’s Coming Next

In my next Substack post, I’ll discuss the magnificence of self-publishing and expand on the upcoming short story collection I mentioned earlier. Before then, I need a few days to pluck up the courage to do so… writers are shy, y’know!

If you are interested in thoughtful content documenting the highs, lows and lessons of my personal self-publishing journey, you can follow my Substack by clicking this link: