Feature & Follow Friday #32 ~ Tag, You're It!

I'm so excited to join Feature & Follow Friday!! This is a weekly meme hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read where they each feature a blogger with an interview and also have a question or activity for all bloggers to participate in answering. Please click the links above to follow the hosting bloggers and the featured bloggers and enter the link to your own post in the linky. Hop around to as many blogs as you can - find new blogs to follow and gain some new followers as well. Mingle and make some new blogger friends! :D

I would be so happy and ever so grateful if you'd follow me any way you'd like but especially by Bloglovin' or email (to the left) and Twitter. Thank you! <3

 Q: You are It! We're playing #FF tag this week. Comment on as many blogs as you can, even if they aren't participating in #FF. Just say Happy #FF! at the end of your comment. Keep a running total if you want and update your post with it. The bigger the number the more impressed we will be!  

I love this! It's gonna be so much fun! :D
Check out the really cool graphic Parajunkee made for the occasion below! 
Happy #FF! 

My tally: 15 so far :)
Update #1: 33
Update #2: Whew! I made it through all 70!!! Found some great new blogs to follow and said hi to some old friends. :D  
Update #3: 74! A few more bloggers joined the party! :D   

the contest

I entered a World Poetry Movement contest, received a letter stating my poem had been chosen to be published in their next anthology, and was thrilled. I had my doubts when they asked me to pay for the book and thought it was strange that they weren't sending me a copy for free. My husband was so proud of me and knew how excited I was and how much this meant to me, so he bought a copy for us.

I soon found another writer on Twitter who had also entered the contest and had also received a letter that he would be published. He sent me a link to an article about writing contests to watch out for, and this contest was one of them. Writing contests should not require the entrant to purchase anything. I still felt okay because I had pretty much figured out on my own that something wasn't quite right, thus the reason I used Twitter to seek out anyone else who had also entered this contest. 

The book just came in the mail on Monday, and it looks even better than I thought it would. I will post a picture of the cover as soon as I can--I really like it. The way I feel about this whole experience is actually positive. I was surprised and touched by how supportive and excited my husband was even when I shared my doubts about this being a true contest. He didn't care; he still wanted the book.

Seeing my poem printed in a book with an entire page dedicated to my work has given me twice the amount of motivation to keep going, to keep working as hard as I can to reach my goal of becoming an author. This is a victory for me, a small one, but a victory nonetheless. I am proud of this accomplishment. I wrote this poem over ten years ago, and I still find it one of my best pieces to this day.

I would like to share my poem with all of you, and I will tomorrow!