Parradime

"If," Andrew said apropos of nothing, "I was going to write a Da Vinci Code knockoff in three days and if I was going to call it The Plato Something, what should the third word be?"

"I don't know," I said. "I don't read these kinda books! Call your dad and ask him. It'll be something like...strategem." (it was actually Daleks I was thinking of here.)

"Strategem! That's good," he said, turning back to his computer. Inadvertantly, I nearly double my footprint on literature (I've already suggested a name for one of Andrew's books, only to learn that other people had come up with better names after he'd gotten sick of trying to think of one and gone with mine).

Then he told me his great idea for his protagonist's name was, upon googling, another self-published author who "writes books about burritos" (I am not going to ask) so he asked me for a name. "For a aging but youthful academic whose field is never specified who..." -- I stopped being able to pay attention here -- "...pulled into a world of...ancient...secret code...artifact..."

"Leonard," I said.

It made him laugh.

"Leonard... Paradigm!"

Now he was really gigling, but though it was obvious he loved it he protested, "How many people have you met called Paradigm?"

"You could spell it funny!" I was trying to be helpful. "Like Carradine!"

Writing books is fun. I hope he asks me to help more.