This vs. That: Washington vs. Lincoln Results
Feb 21, 2011 
In honor of President’s Day, I bring you the results of the Washington vs. Lincoln debate. Thank you to all my non-U.S. visitors for putting up with my U.S.-centric question this last time.
So, of all my proposed debates, this has been the hardest question for me to answer by far. Actually, I’m still debating who to vote for as I write this introductory paragraph. But since I forced the issue, and I have no one to blame but myself, here we go:
Total votes: 22
George Washington: 5 votes; 22%
Abraham Lincoln: 14 votes; 63%
Both: 1 vote; 5%
All Presidents: 1 vote; 5%
Decline to vote: 1 non-vote; 5%
After the first few votes, I totally thought that George Washington would take it by a landslide, but the tables turned. Both men are fascinating in what they did as President of the United States. Great leaders in a time when we really needed them. And though Lincoln may have won this vote, I honor both of them. However, in the end, I voted for George Washington. I’ve read a lot more about him, and recently visited Mount Vernon, so I suppose I was biased. A couple of things I particularly admire about him are 1) his love for his wife, Martha Washington; and 2) the fact that he never asked the men who fought with him in the revolutionary war to do anything he was not willing to do himself. A true leader.
So a couple of quick facts about each.
Washington: In his will, he granted freedom to all of his slaves, to take effect after Martha’s death (though Martha didn’t wait for her death to free them).
Lincoln: The observance of the Thanksgiving holiday began with him. On Oct. 3, 1863, he proclaimed that there be a national day of Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November. He also was the first president to have a beard.
Okay, enough of that. Two great men. I admire them both. Now on to the next vote:
Query Helps
Writing a query letter is never easy, but I’ve found several useful helps that I wanted to share. Most of you probably know of these, but just in case I ever lose my head, I want a record. 😉
The biggest help was Elana Johnson’s blog and her book From the Query to the Call. I stumbled upon her blog about a year ago, and she was just starting a series on writing a good query letter. I found her advice so useful at actually getting words on paper, that I purchased her book (which I still refer back to ALL THE TIME).
With all of Elana’s success, she now generously offers her book free to anyone who would like it. Don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s not useful. Seriously the best $8 I’ve ever spent—I’d still pay money for it. If you don’t have it, go get it post haste. You’ll find it on her website under the “Query to the Call” tab.
Another helpful blog is Janet Reid’s Query Shark. As a successful and respected agent, she breaks down queries that have been submitted by brave souls and points out what is and isn’t working. It’s a fascinating study. While you can submit your query, I’ve found it very useful to simply read through her past posts. You start to get a feel for what a query should be and what you definitely should NOT do. So go, and be enlightened.
The last link I want to share is QueryTracker.net. Not only can you sign up for a free account (they have Premium accounts you can pay for if you want to do more) that will track all the queries and submissions you have sent with the dates and names of the agents or publishers, but they have the Query Tracker Forum as well. You have to request an account for the forum in addition to the QueryTracker.net account, but it is well worth the trouble to do so. Here you can connect with other writers and also receive feedback on your work. They have forums for giving and getting critiques on query letters, the first five pages, as well as the synopsis. They have a forum for any questions you may have about the query process and they have forums for about anything book related you could want.
The forums at AbsoluteWrite.com are similar in nature, and also very useful. (So I lied about querytracker.net being the last link.)
There are many other helpful sites and blogs when it comes to querying (see Matthew Rush’s blog The Quintissentially Questionable Query Experiement, for example), these are simply the ones that have been most helpful to me. In the comments, feel free to share sites and blogs that have helped you the most with writing your query.
And best of luck to all of you working on writing a query letter!
You Asked for It!
Thank you for all the questions! I appreciate your patience with my brief episode of Tabula Rasa-itis. So here we go:
Justine Dell asked: What is your biggest fear? And don’t say something lame like spiders or something.
It’s a good thing you clarified, because I TOTALLY would have put spiders. 🙂 But beyond those, I would have to say my biggest fear is split in two:
- Losing any member of my family. (But whose isn’t, right?)
- That my best won’t be good enough . . . whether in writing, or raising my family, or whatever.
- Have you noticed that I really like lists?
Joanne asked: If you didn’t write, what would you do creatively?
Hmmm . . . this is a hard question because there are so many ways to answer it. I actually love music and play the piano and (dabble in the guitar), but I don’t have the discipline to practice enough to become good. So while I’d do it for fun, I don’t think it could ever fill in for writing.
And I’ve always wished I had any talent in illustration, but alas, ’tis not my lot. BUT, if we’re talking about an imaginery world here where all things are possible, then this would be it. I’d be an artist for sure! Oil paintings and maybe water colors. 🙂
Stina Lindenblatt, after acusing Justine of cheating, asked: What is the thing you like best about writing fiction?
Honestly, it’s getting lost in another world. I’ve always been a daydreamer (and I was master of doing it without getting caught in school), so I suppose it was a natural shift to write fiction. But who doesn’t want to escape their reality at some point for a more exciting place where you are important or even essential to the well-being of the world? The possibilities are endless! It’s why I’ll be writing for the rest of forever even if I never do get published.
Jackee took the liberty of asking two questions (such presumption!): What would be your ideal writing life?
I’m a little torn about this question because my ideal writing life would probably exclude all of my current life. But see, then it wouldn’t be ideal anymore. So trying to strike a balance . . .
- I would have a cute little writing office with an ocean view.
- My children would wait patiently while I finish that chapter.
- The day would have something like 26 hours in it.
- I’d have a water cooler next to my desk.
- A fresh platter of chocolate-covered strawberries would be brought in by the maid at the tinkle of a bell.
- The laws of science regarding calories and weight gain would not apply to me.
- The maid, of course, would keep the house sparking clean, AND cook deliciously healthy meals for my family.
- I could go on for a while, but I might start to despise my life or something, so I’d better stop. 😉
Question #2: When did you first know you wanted to write? (But not necessarily get published).
I think the first hint that I enjoyed it was in High School. I sent an outline for a Disney-ified version of The Pied Piper to The Walt Disney Co. 😀
Oh, yes I did. I knew nothing about query letters or anything, and I didn’t even want to get paid. I just wanted my idea to be the next Disney animated feature-film. I still have the response they sent stating that The Walt Disney Co. does not read outside ideas. My un-read letter was included in the package. Really, I’m quite proud of my first rejection. 🙂
So I have this personal rule about long blogs . . . I try to avoid them. And this is getting long, so I will have to respond to these in batches. No worries, if you asked a question, I’ll link back to your blog (if I have your link) and respond. I promise.
Darling Husband’s Guest Post
As a special Valentine’s Day treat (for me), my Darling Husband has laboured over a blog post to give me a break. It took some doing, but I finally convinced him to let go and let me post it. 😀
Well, I digress! To my wife my best gift is my love for you, Je t’aime, and to my children, I love you!
Tabula Rasa
So Tabula Rasa is the theory that babies are born with a blank slate . . . meaning they know nothing in the beginning. Every experience they have fills their slate [read that, mind] and makes them who they are.
This is my mind right now. I want to claim that there was a glitch in the system, and the whole hard drive just crashed. Perhaps it was a burn out. Nevertheless, there we are.
So I’ve seen others do this and I’ve been saving the idea for just such a moment as this: Go ahead, ask me any question you would like, and I may or may not answer it in the next post.
And in the mean time, feel free to add your vote to the last This vs. That debate if you haven’t already. The results are coming next week! Don’t get too excited, now. 😉
And now go, and have a wonderful weekend!
Over-analyzers Anonymous
Hello, my name is Juanita, and I’m an over-analyzer.
*Hello, Juanita* (Yes, I did just speak for all you in the blogosphere. I hope you don’t mind.)
So here’s her story:
According to this blog I . . . I mean, she read (you know, the kind that stalks agents), she heard that Agent Super totally makes full requests on every query she gets on days with a Blue Moon.
So she did it, she waited until the next Blue Moon to submit, but then she didn’t get a reply back within Agent Super’s usual ten minutes, and by the time an hour had passed, she was totally freaking out! I mean, seriously!
Since she knows this Agent has impeccable taste, and she knows said Agent responds within minutes (according to the said blog), and that Agent Super ALWAYS requests a full on Blue Moon days, . . .
then the ONLY POSSIBLE conclusion is that her manuscript is HORRIBLE!
Yes, Juanita is an over-analyzer. She latches on to a little detail (which may or may not be true, depending on the context) and then lets her mind run with it. And of course, her mind uses LOGIC and “FACT”-BASED EVIDENCE to make conclusions that are sure to tear her self-esteem to shreds.
And there’s no escaping it, because it’s all sitting in that pretty little head of hers, and no matter how busy she may keep herself, her brain has this extra 90% that isn’t being used, so it has plenty of room to keep analyzing, and analyzing, and analyzing, and analyzing, and analyzing,
and analyzing,
and analyzing,
and analyzing,
and analyzing,
and analyzing,
and analyzing,
and analyzing,
and analyzing . . .
Well, you get the point. Poor Juanita.
Lucky for her, there IS a cure. But unlucky for her, I’m not sure what it is, so I’m hoping you all can help Juanita out . . . What do you do to keep your brain in check when it threatens to hi-jack your sense of reality?
*Note: Super Agent and Juanita are fictitious characters. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is a complete coincidence. Really.
License Plate Trivia Revealed
So wow, I was impressed with how many of you got the color right! *wink, wink*
For those of you just tuning in, the license plate was
ROS3RED
My readers were charged with guessing the color, make and model.
But alas, no one got it exactly right. Stina Lindenblatt was the closest with the guess of a Red, Toyota, Sienna.
Red, yes. Toyota, yes. Sienna, no.
Conquering Clichés, Part 4: Using Them . . . or Not
As writers, we are told so often to “Avoid Clichés,” that the warning has pretty much become a cliché itself. Ah, the irony. In the last post in this series, we discussed several reasons to cut clichés, but it’s good to note that there are moments when clichés can work.
I can think of two valid reasons for using them:
1. Establishing a Character.
People speak in clichés. It’s a natural thing. While I don’t think that means you should fill your characters’ dialogue with clichés, you might use them to establish a type of character.
- An old granny who has a proverb/idiom for every situation.
- A ranch-workin’ cowboy transplanted into a New York boarding school.
- A Budda monk who lives in a monastery on top of Mount Kismet.
- A parent arguing with a teenager who missed curfew.
You get the idea. The clichés they use build their character—show us who they are—place them in the world of your book. Still, the clichés should be used responsibly. Be sure they build up your character, rather than pull the character into the quagmire of overuse.
2. As Irony or Humor.
When you are using a cliché with the specific purpose of mocking it, I think it works. Clichés can be a lot of fun to play with. And because they are so well known (you know, from being overused), they make good joke bait.
For example, in Sorcerer’s Apprentice (you have seen this movie, haven’t you?), they use a plot cliché (namely Jedi mind-control) so the bad guy can get the information he needs. So just when I’m thinking, Huh. That reminds me an awful lot of Star Wars, his apprentice, the comedic sidekick, waves his hand and says in a mock-serious voice, “These are not the droids you are looking for.” Okay, so maybe you have to see it, but it totally worked. Because they made a mockery of the cliché, I not only forgave it, but now think it’s one of the best parts of the movie.
A word of caution: even though clichés may work in such situations, we need to be careful not to overdo it. What is funny once can fall flat the second or third time.
To end this series, I want to recognize that clearing out clichés that have crept into our writing is never easy. It takes work and effort. It often requires thinking outside the box. One of the best resources I know of to help your mind envision the possibilities is The Bookshelf Muse.
On the sidebar of their blog, you will find a wonderful assortment of Thesauruses: Setting Thesaurus; Emotion Thesaurus; Colors, Textures and Shape Thesaurus; and a Symbolism Thesaurus. Angela and Becca are nothing if not thorough, and they are constantly adding entries. I highly recommend you visit them for help with conquering clichés.
Again, I don’t claim to be an expert. Hearing others’ opinions and ideas is always good. So in the comments, please feel free to share other situations where you think using a cliché would work, other resources you know of to help conquer clichés, and any differing view you may have.
If you missed the first 3 parts, feel free to follow the links:
Conquering Clichés, Part 1: Introduction
Conquering Clichés, Part 2: Ways to be Cliché
Conquering Clichés, Part 3: Why We are Cautioned Against Them
Conquering Clichés, Part 4: Using Them . . . or Not
Pay It Forward
Shelli, over at Market My Words, is having a Pay-It-Forward Contest. One of the requirements to enter is that you recognize in a blog post (or on Facebook) someone who has helped you in some way.
I love the idea of paying it forward, and I am an advocate of giving thanks, so I am excited to share. And I didn’t have to think long about who I wanted to thank.
Back when I was first introduced to the writing blogosphere by my fabulous CP Vicki, before I even kept a writing blog, I read a post about a writing contest over at Laurel’s Leaves. It was her Eleventy-one Celebration Writing Contest where she wanted a scene showing negotiation and persuasion.
I decided to enter, and lo and behold, I won! I was astonished . . . and even more astonished when she gave the break down on her blog of why she chose my piece.
I can’t express what it meant to me to have a complete stranger (at the time) say such kind things about my writing. It was just what I needed to hear right then. It boosted my confidence, and it was the catalyst that led to my starting a writing blog and to the drive to finally finish editing my book.
I just wanted to tell Laurel thank you for your contest and for your kind words. It all meant much more to me than I’m sure you could have guessed.
THANK YOU!
And in the spirit of thanks, feel free to give a shout out to someone who influenced your life for the better. 🙂
License Plate Trivia
It’s been way too long since I did one of these. So for those who haven’t played before, guess the Make, Model, and Color of the car with the following license plate:
ROS3RED
First person to guess correctly can choose between their favorite candy bar or a mystery prize (which may or may not be as good as the candy bar *insert evil laugh here*).
P.S. If you haven’t weighed in on the last This vs. That post, please do! I hate to beg, but I’d love more opinions . . . it’s a TOUGH decision. 😉
P.P.S. Garrett, I still owe you . . . I’ve been searching for that Cadbury Egg, I may have to go with your back-up. Just didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten!