Today, November 1, is National Author’s Day, and by my count, I get to celebrate three times.

After all, I have three pen names — one for each creative creature that refused to stay quiet. That’s triple the inspiration, triple the to-be-read pile, and yes, triple the goat milk. (The commas, thankfully, remain infinite.)

But before the author “celebrations,” there was a long apprenticeship of sorts — though it didn’t feel romantic or literary at the time. It was the era of content mills, ghost gigs, and anonymous writing where the byline belonged to someone else, usually accompanied by a logo that paid in exposure or a rate so low it might as well have.

I wrote for everyone except myself. Health blogs. Product blurbs. Think pieces about trends in which I didn’t believe. I learned how to sound like anyone — and in doing so, I almost forgot how to sound like me.

The shift from writer to author wasn’t a single thunderclap of confidence; it was more like a slow sunrise. One sentence at a time, I began writing for my own name. Then, unexpectedly, for two more.

Each name became a distinct voice that had been waiting in the wings all along:

🌿 Alexandra Heep, the researcher and truth-seeker, who builds bridges between science and spirit.
🍄 Helena Parx, the storyteller who gives gnomes, cats, and groves their say in the Gnomeward Bound series.
🌸 Lexa Drane, the dreamer who sketches and rhymes her way through whimsical worlds, from skunk-cats to alpaca farms.

Each pen name carries a different rhythm, a different color of courage — yet all three share the same pulse: the reclamation of authorship.

Because there’s something profoundly different about being a writer and being an author.
A writer fills a page.
An author fills a space in the world.

An author writes from a place of ownership — not of money or markets, but of meaning.

So yes, I’ll celebrate three times today. Once for the “girl” who typed through migraines under fluorescent lights for a penny a word (often even less). Once for the woman who decided her stories were worth telling even if no one commissioned them. And once for the ongoing creative brain who refuses to fit into one voice, one lane, or one label.

Happy National Author’s Day — to everyone who has ever typed in the margins, edited in the shadows, and quietly built his or her way toward the light of their own name.

May you write until your voice feels like home.