New Fiction: (Unnamed, part one: Frenchy) (Patreon)

“That’s my name.” I said.

“I know.” Frenchy replied.

“You used my name?” I boggled mildly.

“Yep.” said Frenchy.

“You used my name.” I said uselessly.

“Yeah, but what do you think?” Frenchy breezed.

“Why did you use my name?” I blinked.

“I like it. It’s a good name.”

“My name.”

“It’s just a name.” Frenchy rolled their eyes. “What do you think of the story?”

“But it’s my name.” I refused to let Frenchy just get away with this one. “Why did you put me in your story?”

“It’s not YOU. Calm yourself already and get over it.”

“It’s. My. Name.”

“It’s not YOUR name.”

“It is one hundred percent my name!”

“Ugh fine, but it’s not JUST your name. Someone else could have it, too. You don’t OWN it.”

“Do you know someone else with my name?”

“I could name my baby whatever I want- I could name my baby the same thing as you.”

I thrust my pointer finger at the screen. “This is not a baby!”

“Writer’s words are like babies to them!”

“I am a writer, Frenchy!” I shouted, “This is not a baby!

“You’re not a REAL writer.” Frenchy scoffed, “Anyway, you should be honored.”

“I should be-” I boggled, again, much less mildly this time.

“You’re going to apologize to me for the way you’re behaving later.” Frenchy asserted. “You’re going to realize how cruel you were to me in this moment and you are going to apologize to me, and hope that I forgive you.”

I gawped. “I’m not a real writer?”

“Not *really*.” Frenchy shrugged condescendingly at me.

“Why are you bringing this to me to look at? If I’m not a ‘real’ writer?”

“I mean, you’re like writer-adjacent. I don’t know any real writers.”

I closed my eyes. I was not prone to violence. But I had a moment of wishing I was. I was prone to taking things slowly and thinking them through. I was prone to expecting that my friends were on my team and that we were looking out for each other- I was-

“-anyway, you should be grateful I let you see this before I publish-”

“You publish?”

“I’ll introduce you to my publisher when I’ve got the deal, and maybe they’ll want to look at your work, too.”

“You don’t have a publisher.” I said, suddenly calling Frenchy on it. “There’s no way.” This time Frenchy didn’t have a quick retort. “This isn’t anywhere near good enough.”

“People publish awful books all the time.”

“You don’t have a publisher.” I reiterated. I had Frenchy in a corner.

“So HELP me already.” Frenchy moaned, “I came to you for help and all you’ve done is be MEAN.”

“I will help you if you change the name.”

“That name is better on this character, anyway!” Frenchy moaned, “It’s wasted on you.”

“You’re not convincing me to help you.” I said.

“YOU change YOUR name!” Frenchy pouted. “This whole thing is written for the name. It doesn’t work otherwise!”