Oh yeah, know exactly what you mean. Iconing for specific things can be tricky when it comes to getting them square if there are aspects you want to keep in. However, sometimes you can also make it not square and add an area of plain background in a colour that goes with the scene for the words.

I'm not a very good iconer and I'm just a 'player' in that I don't have any idea about technique and certainly don't enter competitions or anything, but I know when something looks 'okay' or 'really wrong' as well as WAY GOOD (ie, not mine! HA!).

I don't have any fancy programs or anything and tend to just use something online that I found helpful, and I have seen it done WAY better than my own ones, but I'm using this one I made myself to show what I mean (although please know I realise this isn't a great icon by any stretch of the imagination)!