Paying Attention

I was prowling around online yesterday when I found an organization where I once belonged, paid my dues, received the newsletter. It was the Florida Mystery Writers of America. There, like an old flame, was the place that took me in when my first novel was released, and I remembered the meetings, the support as my novel took off, the fading away of it all as the novel fell, ungraciously, from the charts.
     Here I was again, unseen at the window, peering in. A bright banner stated 'Sleuthfest 2012, in Orlando;  and, then, it announced a short story contest.
     I read the basic information the form of the story must take (protagonist must be attending the Sleuthfest at the Royal Plaza Hotel, where a kid points to a Mickey Mouse hat and asks the protagonist to retrieve it for him, only to find the beanie is attached to a human head).
     I could write that, I thought.
     So I minimized the site and began writing. As writers do, I left the real world behind and launched into the story, found my voice and finished it sometime early this morning. I read it, re-read it, thought of a title, practically beaming.
     Dozens of projects were left undone. Christmas on the way, and I spent ten hours writing, fearlessly flying through my imagination.
     So I opened the contest site again and read all the way to the bottom this time. This contest is open to the attendants of Sleuthfest 2012 only. That's what it said at the bottom.
     I then searched out the registration site for Sleuthfest. 255 bucks for FMWA members, 275 for non-members.

     What makes a writer isn't always the paying-attention  part. But maybe you should get all the facts first. That applies to story telling, and it applies to life itself.
     Oops.