Shucks

So I'm a writer. Aspiring to be a paid writer. One way to be a paid writer is to enter contests. (Bookstore gift cards are payment, right?) Most contests are big and scary; you have to use snail mail (not a good thing when the Teacher is as allergic to the post office as she is and I can never find the stamps), and have a certain word count, and enter your writing in a specific genre. And hope that they won't care you aren't eighteen. (If the prize is more than a gift card, trust me, they'll care. Ageism.) And pray that the judges will recognize your writing as a piece of brilliant work, and not a teenage writer with stage-fright. And hope that they'll deign to tell you when you're disqualified.
So I've never actually participated in a writing contest. I write; therefore I am; therefore I need no stinking gift cards.
Until today. Doing my very sporadic checking on the few blogs I follow (most blogs I read are because the Teacher leaves them up on the computer), I found a reference to a contest. Interested but not very hopeful, I followed the link, and...
It wasn't big! It wasn't scary! 75 words posted in the comments based on the writing prompt that this very kind blogger had found in the news! I could do this! I did do it!
(Well, okay, saying anything in 75 words is actually harder than it looks. But I did it.)
And here it is:
Working Title: X(squared, or that little floaty two thing)
X wanted to study math in Germany. His father decreed he had to get some real-life experience first. Job interviews are real, right? X never dreamed he would be accepted.
His mission has changed: X has to find a caretaker among the applicants and get him hired. And not get caught. It's all on TV, and Germany hangs in the balance. But days tick by, and he wonders: Does anyone want the job?
Considering that my original draft of this was a hundred and thirty-five words, I'm proud of myself.
Only one snag: did I mention that my blog-reading is sporadic? This contest expired last week. I posted it anyway, just so I wouldn't feel like I had wasted the last thirty minutes writing it.
And so another gift card dream crashes and burns....