Quick Poll: How Do You Feel When a Contest Deadline is Extended?

Last year I was asked to serve as contest chair for a conference occurring this fall.

In the past I've enjoyed attending this conference, have paid to sponsor contests, have been a guest speaker, and have served as a volunteer judge. So, I agreed to volunteer for the conference chair job, as well as help with registration.

One of the benefits of attending this conference is that anyone registered (except of course the board members and conference chair) has the opportunity to enter the dozens of contests -- at no additional cost.

The contest entries (two copies each) began to arrive in July. I was excited when they appeared in my mailbox and started sorting and organizing them right away.

Dozens of people entered multiple contests. (There were 31 categories in all.)

One person who entered several contests sent each entry in a separate envelope, which made a lot of extra work for me, and added expense for her. I wrote and suggested she bundle her entries together to save money but did not receive a response. Some folks included notes thanking me for being conference chair, which made me feel good.

The original deadline for entering fell a few days before the Labor Day weekend, so I suggested to board members that the deadline be extended until the day after Labor Day.

The only drawback I could see was the judges would have a few days less time to complete their judging. All but one judge was fine with the shortened time for judging, and that was because he was leaving for vacation the day the entries arrived at his house.

The biggest (and most hurtful) complaint about the deadline extension came from someone who felt cheated because other writers would have extra time to submit their entries and thus more opportunities to win contests she might've won. (Although she also had the additional days to submit more entries if she chose.)

I'm trying to keep a positive attitude, so I won't go into all the ugly details, but I would like to take a quick poll of my writer friends out there:

How do you feel when a contest deadline is extended?

Do you feel relieved to have a few extra days to submit?

Do you get angry if a deadline is extended?

Do you feel cheated that it's unfair to those who entered at the original deadline?

Have you ever been a contest chair and had to deal with an issue like this?

Nightmare in Washington: "Walking Dead" Politicians Sucking the Blood Out of Our Nation

What’s been going on lately in Washington is truly frightening, to the point of being nightmarish.

Maybe it's because Halloween is just around the corner or because I've been watching too many scary movies on TV or it could be the spicy sandwich I ate the other night, but I have a wild notion about what is wrong with the career politicians running Washington -- and our nation -- into the ground.

 

Isn't it obvious?

Zombies and vampires are in charge of our government, on both sides of the aisle.

What else can explain their bizarre behavior?

Think about how the zombie-vampire members of Congress cleverly disguise their true essence:

During the day they roam the halls of Congress in fancy business suits and ties or dress suits and high heels. Rapt minions trail behind them, waiting to serve their every need, whim, or desire. 

To look fit – and no doubt to fit in with the living – these zombie-vampire members of Congress spend hours in the Congressional gym or on the golf course – both of which were open during the shutdown, according to news reports.

Others frequent tanning booths to conceal their pasty skin tones.

A few of the more vain Congressional members seem to have had some “work” done to hide their wrinkles and make them appear younger looking.  

Some politicians like to imbibe in alcohol after hours—or maybe that odor is formaldehyde.

 

And what do they do for us, the citizens?

They feed on our fears.

They suck the blood out of our economy.

They stomp on our freedoms.

They do sneaky things when they think no one is watching.

And we can’t seem to get rid of them!

Somehow, the same politicians get re-elected year after year. They’re like a piece of chewing gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe. You just can’t shake them loose.

I have a solution to get these blood suckers the heck out of Washington – and out of office for good.

Forget silver crosses or garlic or holy water or other vampire-zombie elimination methods, whatever those might be.

There are two words that strike fear into their hearts – if, in fact, the zombie-vampire career politicians in Washington actually do have hearts:

Those two words are: TERM LIMITS.

Okay. I’m done now.

Don’t you wish you’d hear that from members of Congress?

How Sweet it Is

Receiving awards is always fun, but receiving an award from a friend is extra special.

Thank you, Lynn Obermoeller, at Present Letters for giving me this sweet award several days ago.

Sorry I didn't post about it sooner, but I received it just before I left to go out of town and am just now catching up with my posts.

With accepting this award, I'm supposed to do the following:

Thank the Super Sweet Blogger who nominated me. (Thank you, Lynn.)

Answer Five Super Sweet questions. (See my answers below.)

Include the Super Sweet Blogging award image in my blog post. (Done.)

Nominate a baker's dozen other bloggers. (Since by now just about all the bloggers I know have  received this award, I invite any of my visitors who have not received this award to please accept it with my compliments.)

Here are the super sweet questions and my answers:

1. Cookies or Cake? Angel food cake with strawberries on top. But chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies also make my tummy smile.

2. Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate - dark. My mouth waters just thinking about dark chocolate molasses puffs and Mounds bars. I also like chocolate chip ice cream.

3. Favorite Sweet Treat? Gosh. My answer depends on the time of the year, so I'll answer by the four seasons: Spring: Strawberry shortcake. Summer: Lemon meringue pie. Fall: Pumpkin bread. Winter: Christmas cookies and hot chocolate. All year long: licorice.

4. When do you crave sweet things the most? In the evening after dinner. Also when I'm driving, I like to gnaw on strawberry Twizzlers.

5. Sweet Nickname?  Dudley. My husband gave me that nickname early in our marriage, which is a smushing together of my first name Donna and my maiden name Duly.

How about you? What are your favorite sweet treats? And do you have a nickname?

Extrovert or Introvert - Which are You?

The other day on the NPR "All Things Considered" site I read an interesting interview of Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.

After reading Susan's interview and reviews of her book, I realized I definitely need to head to the library and check out her book.

In her NPR interview she responds to questions, including: the difference between introversion and shyness, the culture of character vs. the culture of personality, and the value of working alone. The end of her interview includes a "Quiet Quiz" to gauge where you fall on the introvert-extrovert spectrum.

Although it's not a scientific quiz, the questions "were formulated based on characteristics of introversion often accepted by contemporary researchers." Some of the questions include: I often prefer to express myself in writing, I enjoy solitude, I dislike conflict, along with 17 others.

If you would like to read the entire article, interview, and quiz, here's a link to the NPR article, "Quiet Please: Unleashing the Power of Introverts."

I took the quiz then asked my husband the questions. I rank high on the Introvert scale, and hubby is more in the middle. As I took the questions, though, I realized that had I been asked these same questions 20 years ago, although I still would be an introvert, some of my answers would've been different.

So, how about you? Are you an extrovert or introvert or do you fall somewhere in between?

Interview Questions

As a freelance writer, I've interviewed dozens of authors in the past few years. This week I have a deadline to come up with interview questions for a romantic suspense author, whose book I just finished reading. I really enjoyed her book. The story is fresh and suspenseful. It kept my attention and interest until the end. I've interviewed this author in the past, so I want to keep my questions fresh.

The writer in me wants to focus my questions on her writing process: where she gets her ideas, how she develops her characters, does she outline or plunge ahead, how does she research the technical parts of the book, and the like. My editor wants the focus to be on the author's present book. Generally, I try to do both; weave in writing-related questions while bringing out highlights of the current novel. That's not always easy.

Without mentioning the author's name, I'd like your opinion:

1. If you were interviewing a romantic suspense writer, what questions would you ask?

2. Now for the big question: If you could interview any writer (living or dead), who would it be, and what would you ask them?

One dead writer I would like to interview is Mark Twain. I'd want to know what he thinks about the rewrite of Huck Finn to make it more politically correct. I bet he would come up with a zinger of an answer.

Query Letters - What's Your Opinion?

Today's forecast for St. Peters: Mostly sunny, high 31 degrees, partly cloudy this evening.
I'm glad it's not supposed to snow tonight because we're going to see Disney on Ice at the Scott Trade Center. (I won free tickets, Yay!)

Now, on to query letters.

There's a discussion on two agents' blogs--Kristen Nelson's Pub Rants and Nathan Bransford's blogspot--about query letters. Kristen's site shares a successful query letter from one of her writers. That same writer has posted on her blog the query letter in the original version and revisions written with the help of someone else--along with the reasons for the suggested changes. The final version is what led to a book deal. I found it enlightening to read all of the versions to see the changes and what worked and what didn't.

Someone on Nathan's asked how he felt about it. The debate centers on the ethics? of having someone other than the writer compose your query letter, or writing a query letter "by committee" in a critique group. There are more than 130 posts on Nathan's blog, so there are some strong opinions on both sides.

Because I belong to a critique group and know how helpful they can be, I think it's a good strategy to run a query by a critique group (or a trusted reader) before submitting it to an agent or editor. In fact, several members of critique groups I've belong to have done just that before sending out their queries (or synopses).

But . . . while getting advice and suggestions from others, such as members of a critique group, can be helpful, I advise writers to be prudent about which advice they use. The bottom line is: the writer should "own" his query letter, and it should reflect the writer's voice so the agent or publisher knows what to expect in the book.

Anyone care to share an opinion on this?