My true name starts with X, so I use it in everything. I like to sign things as X. I don't think of it as a love symbol unless it's next to an O, LOL (Like hug and kiss.)

Here's a funny thing. Once I had a poem published in one of those big anthologies (which are more like scams because they just want you to buy their book and tons of crap with your poem on it.) Anyway, on the page to fill out how I wanted my name to appear, one box was first name, one middle name, and one last name. So, I put first and last name but left the middle one blank. Next to middle name it said middle name (optional.) But I left it blank.

When the poem came out, it was published with Optional as my middle name. It was pretty funny. So, out there are all these anthologies and my middle name is Optional.