There is nothing quite like realizing the lead male in your sci-fi novella shares a name with a freaking author.

Yep. There’s a Galen Beckett, Author, floating around out there. Found out by accident, glancing at a forum where someone asked about a book written by him.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked aloud, once I realized they weren’t talking about my Galen (I got so excited for a minute!).

Naturally, this makes me a little nervous. Galen was originally a filler name that ended up sticking, because after 52,000 words…well, you try changing a name after 52,000 words. The character went through a bunch of different last names before I settled on “Beckett,” because the thing had a nice, Earthen ring to it, but still sounded suitably “sci-fi.” I was pretty sure I googled it…but maybe that was one of the prior last names I used. Or maybe I just checked Kate Hawkins.

This is probably going to lead to an insatiable urge to search every damned name I use, but I’m trying to resist. The way I see it, there’s almost seven billion people on the planet. Someone is going to have the same name. Look at poor Michael Bolton from Office Space. Or anyone named John Hartnell or William Braine (I don’t recommend googling those names unless you’re really into mummies). Think of all the poor souls named Justin Beiber or Michael Jordan out there.

If the subject continues to haunt me, I may go into the manuscript and change his last name again and re-upload it. In the meantime, ain’t life serendipitous?

Ugh.