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"Being weird is my superpower!" - Lynette Eklund Author -- Artist -- Speaker
Battling monsters in her mind while making them in life.
WEIRD: A Monster-maker's Journey From Small Town to Hollywood With OCD
One of Hollywood's few female monster-makers grows up believing everyone—even her parents—would prefer she never existed.
A story of monsters, both imagined and real, and how embracing them can lead to unexpected triumph.
SHORT BIO
Lynette is a Hollywood creature effects suit, puppet builder and performer, including Beetlejuice, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, The Sandlot, Mr. Beast's Lose 100 pounds and Gain $250,000; Skeleton Crew, Dust Bunny and new comedy/horror, Buddy. She was also on the prototyping team for Teddy Ruxpin, and nearly two hundred other projects.
Her newly-released memoir WEIRD: A Monster-maker's Journey From Small Town to Hollywood With OCD, an instant Amazon best-seller, shares her experiences in the shops and on set in a creature effects industry, to inspire females to dare to step into male-dominated professions without feeling the need to fight, to share her love for her art with others, and to bring awareness and support to the neurodiverse community. While self-learning how to live with her unidentified mental torture, her OCD became her superpower to success.
Lynette now considers herself OC but not D, and would like to help others to become comfortable with themselves, whether they yet understand why they are weird or not.
LONGER BIO
Lynette became a Hollywood creature effects suit and puppet builder and performer at the age of 20. With... let's just say, "a lot!" of years of experience in film and television, commercials, amusement parks, live theater and private contract original works, and over 60 film credits on IMDb.com--and still growing she now resides in the Midwest, where she has the flexibility to write, while long-distance commuting for her still-active career.
Lynette's newly-released memoir WEIRD: A Monster-maker's Journey From Small Town to Hollywood With OCD, is published through Histria Books, distributed through Simon & Schuster. She wrote it to share her experiences in the shops and on set in a creature effects industry, to inspire females to dare to step into male-dominated professions without feeling the need to fight, to share her love for her art with others, and to bring awareness and support to the neurodiverse community.
Lynette didn't realize she had severe OCD until just about four years ago. That lack of knowledge allowed her OCD thoughts to manipulate and control many things in her life, from her confidence to her friendships to her eating habits ...and everything else in-between. While self-learning how to live with her unidentified mental torture, her OCD became her superpower to success, helping her to become one of the leading females in her field. Now that she and her head are on friendly terms, she no longer feels she needs to be fixed. Instead, she considers herself OC but not D--or as she lovingly, simply puts... weird, and would like to help others to become comfortable with themselves, whether they yet understand why they are weird or not.
Lynette Eklund’s memoir WEIRD: A Monster-maker’s Journey From Small Town to Hollywood With OCD is a Hollywood monster-maker became an instant Amazon best-seller. Through the story of her lifelong struggle with multiple forms of severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that were only recently being diagnosed, Lynette takes us behind-the-scenes of some of the biggest effects films of our time, showing us how her weird neurodiverse thinking and habits became her superpower in the competitive male-dominated world of special effects.
Most recently, she contributed to Mr. Beast's YouTube Challenge: Lose 100 pounds and Gain $250,000; Legacy Effects' work on Skeleton Crew, Dust Bunny and Mandelorian & Grogu; and was the Lead Suit Fabricator, a Puppeteer and Suit Performer on Boulder Lights Pictures & Low Spark Film's new comedy/horror, Buddy.
Some of her other credits include Beetlejuice, Oscar-nominated dinosaurs in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Emmy-winning effects for The Stand, The Sandlot, Peanut for Terry Fador, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, being part of the prototyping team for Teddy Ruxpin, and nearly two hundred other projects.
She is also a library board member and supporter of the LA fire recovery funds through her crime story Block Party in the LAXtras short story collection.
Her memoir has gained the support and endorsement of many her fellow Hollywood co-workers, as well as several best-selling authors. Lynette is using her memoir to help spread ODC awareness through interviews and appearance.
She now considers herself OC but not D.
Frequently Asked Questions
Please reach us at lynette@eklundbooks.com if you cannot find an answer to your question.
I'd heard many times over the years that I needed to write my memoir, but I always came up with an excuse not to actually do it. The true was my (unidentified) ODC kept telling me nobody actually cared what I had to say. So, it wasn't until I was at a writer's conference and a publisher approached me, and then no matter how many times I tried to shake him off of the idea of carrying my memoir, that I decided to take the idea seriously. Even then, I didn't write it until I found a part of me that I knew nobody else could tell in just the same way. Now, suddenly, I have a book that I care very deeply about getting into the hands of those who it can inspire and, even more importantly, hopefully help.
The short answer: Because I'm OCD. When I turned my manuscript over to the publisher, my OCD brain would only allow me to send what they asked for--which was the memoir. I took that to mean my actual story. I kept waiting for them to ask for the other interior matter, which now I understand isn't something they require, so when I didn't include it, they assumed I didn't want to include it. BIG learning Oops on my part! So, I'm going to take a few lines right here to say what should've been said in the back of the book.
First, I need to thank Bryan Farney and Amanda Poletti. Without their unbreakable insistence, my memoir would never have happened. I told Bryan my story would live or die with him, and I meant it. Thank you. Thanks to Ron Seybolt, who video chatted with me twice a week for weeks upon weeks, dragging my story out of me one scene at a time. You never allowed me to get away with avoiding putting feelings on the page. Thank you to my Histria Books team, Kurt, Diana and Amna for enduring a new author's million questions. Thank you, Writers Digest, for hosting the conference that allowed my story to be discovered, and to the Backspace gang for being my teachers, my support system and my friends. And finally, thank you to my husband, my three sons, and my parents who passed away before the book came out. Without your faith in me, my faith alone wouldn't have been nearly enough.
We moved to the Midwest and bought an abandoned house of 35 acres, when our boys were very young. Once we got a furnace, and indoor bathroom and windows in the frames, winter came, and I found myself with time to consider having a personal creative outlet. I bought some index cards and started outlining my first novel. Between juggling family and a very needy home, it took me a long time to get out that first story, but after that, I had a new obsession to add to my list of obsessions--but this one, I refuse to stifle.
My first love is fiction. But in spite of my monster-making career, my stories tend to be more emotionally-driven than sci-fi or horror, though I must admit to liking to slip in just the tiniest bit of unexplained mystique to my stories.
Contact & Links
EMAILS WITH ATTACHMENTS WILL NOT BE OPENED
For fan convention appearances, contact Ron Slone: chaoticcat@chaoticcat.com
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