pondering the creepiness of severed doll heads

Last night, I was bopping around online (as I have a tendency to do) and came across a couple of pictures of severed doll heads. I thought, damn those are scary. And then I started to ask myself why a severed doll head is often perceived as a creepy object. It's just a hunk of plastic, after all. Why does it become disturbing just because it was disjoined from the other parts of the doll?

I came up with some plausible theories.



1. Resemblence to an mutilated self? Do we see ourselves in that severed doll head?

2. Symbolic of lost innocence? Dolls associated with childhood associated with an infinitely less complicated way of life before stress, before romantic relationships and such.

3. Loss of security? Another childhood thing. Some children take comfort in toys. That's why firemen supposedly give out teddy bears, right?



4. Or maybe it looks a little too much like a deceased child? We probably should be disturbed by the image of a young member of our species who suffered such a grave trauma, even if it wasn't real. If we have survived this long, we must be hard wired to regard this image as unsettling.



hmmm...perhaps I spend too much time thinking about strange things.

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Other places to find me:
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Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

A Perfect Getaway

A Perfect Getaway stars Milla Jovovich (of Resident Evil hotness), Steve Zahn, Timothy Olyphant, and some other chick named Kieli Sanchez. It’s about a couple on their honeymoon in Hawaii. They travel to a secluded island to do some hiking and hear about murders on another island. The killers are, of course, still at large.

Husband and I both thought the movie got off to a very slow start. A long time passed between the beginning and when the action actually commenced. There was some tension after the main couple met up with another couple, but for the most part, the first half hour to forty five minutes or so was somewhat dull.

Once the action took off, the movie improved significantly. There were a few genuinely gruesome parts, which is always a plus. I think when the blood is lightly sprinkled throughout a story, those parts have more impact, don’t you think? With movies like Hostel, you sort of get to the point where the injuries lose their impact. It’s like – oh good, a needle through the eye, ooh not another severed limb, whatever will we do.

A Perfect Getaway was alright. If you can catch it on HBO or whatever, it’s worth watching. I wouldn’t make a trip to the video store for it though. It gets a B-.

_________________________
Other places to find me:
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Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

yet more book argh

OK, remember how I previously wrote about doing a color version of the book? No? Yes? Well, I did. I took a poll about which version of the book to come out, hard cover with black and white illustrations or paperback with color illustrations. The hard cover with color illustrations costs too much, like $50+.

Well, I went to set up the paperback with color printing yesterday, and the price was almost as high as the color illustration hard cover. effing ridiculous. I used the book calculator before in an effort to make an estimate of what it might cost. Apparently I did it incorrectly because the actual cost was WAY higher than what the calculator told me before.

It just sucks because I only need color on about ten pages but they charge for color throughout. I'm going to have to do all black and white, which makes me quite unhappy. I really love color.

The color versions of the illustrations will be up in slide show form on my website during release week, so y'all will still get to see what they look like. I am considering putting up printable files too, in case anyone wants to print them for personal use. My daughter has requested two of them to hang up in her room, so I guess it's conceivable that someone else in the world might want to print one of them out too.

On the to do list for this week before release week - finish answering interview questions, decide on guest blog post subject matter, also write the guest blog post, set up paperback with black and white illustrations, write event announcement for goodreads, do a few website updates, etc. The list goes on.

I'd better get to it.
_________________________
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

wanna hear it, here it go

I finally finished the illustrations for the special edition of MacDowell Sisters & AnnaBeth. Thank God. I love to draw, but when doing so begins to feel like a chore, I want OUT! There are seven illustrations in all, I think, if you count the fancy scene separators. They aren’t evenly distributed throughout the book. Most of them are toward the beginning.

Even if you don’t plan to get the illustrated version (on lulu), you can still check out the illustrations. I am planning to set up a slideshow on my website during release week.

What else? Oh yes, I realized this weekend that I accidentally named a character in the short story Amy (free on smashwords) the same name as a character in MacDowell Sisters & AnnaBeth, which was really very unintentional. The name is ‘Kevin’.

I stuck the name in the short story as a placeholder because I hadn’t decided on a name. I just used ‘Kevin’ because it was the first name that popped in my head. I planned to change it later, but didn’t. So now when the book comes out, it will probably look like I have some weird obsession with the name ‘Kevin’. I don’t, by the way.

I did manage to take a day completely away from book activities! That is crazy. This is usually a seven day a week operation for me, and no, I’m not exaggerating. Husband and I went with a couple of friends to a band party in the country. The party was totally awesome! There was food and drinking and music and people dancing.

It brought back memories of hanging out at a friend’s farm when I was a teenager. It also made me remember why partying in the country is the best. Every one else is so far away. You can be as loud and obnoxious as you want! Very nice!

So ends my wonderfully long weekend.

_________________________
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

what I learned in book publishing kindergarten

I'm one of those hands on learners. I have to try and fall on my face a few times (usually more) before I get something right. I'm not claiming to have everything right now, but I'm doing some book publishing activities correctly. Let us go through a brief list of what I've learned and maybe I can save someone else a few times of falling on their face.

Book formatting in Word - I use the 2003 version.

Use the 'mirror margins' setting and a gutter, which is like an extra margin for the inside.

Set page number alignment to ‘outside’ or page numbers will end up on the right.

Don't put text too close to the page numbers because that looks weird.

Do not use tabs for indents. If you tab over for an indent, smashwords will reject your file. You have to move that top little triangle on the ruler. Also, you only need to take the indent in 2 notches or so.

Chapters should start on right hand pages. (Courtesy of lady editor)

Non-book formatting learnings

Coming up with the title is much more difficult if you wait until the book is finished.

Weird plus complicated don't mix well for the general reading public. This conclusion isn't based on a survey or anything. It's just a theory of mine, really. I can be weird or I can be complicated, but I probably shouldn’t be both.

Free is the best advertisement. This is a new one for me, so I don't have much in the way of free out yet. Think about the first time you read your favorite authors. Did you buy a book first? Or did you check it from from a library or borrow the book from someone else? People like free stuff, and if they like your freebies well enough, they just might buy a book some day. This is also free marketing for the person trying to sell books, as there are many websites on which an author can post free downloads of their work.

What else? Ah, yes. READ DIRECTIONS and FORMS. I have a tendency to be a scatterbrain. When I switched from lulu over to createspace, apparently I didn't read the part of the forms that would have 1. Listed my book for sale on amazon and 2. Added keywords to make the book come up on searches. DUH! Big brain! I delayed my own book availability/searchability. Is searchability a word? I’m thinking no.

I need to read my book a minimum of five times (plus have one other editor) in order to catch most of the things that are wrong. Having a cooling off period is very important too.

Have an editor, any editor. Even if you think you are supreme word king or queen, someone aside from the author needs to read that book. They will catch things the author won't guaran-effin-teed. Even if the reader doesn't have the proper training to pick out many grammar mistakes, they will give a reader's perspective - a what the heck does that mean? Or a this can't possibly happen/exist. Minimum qualifications for editor should be - reasonably good grasp of the language and acceptable reading comprehension.

And finally - if the goal is to have the book for sale on amazon, then use createspace instead of lulu. They are cheaper and faster. Seriously.

_________________________
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

my very own fail. on my very own blog.

Below is a tag off some pants I bought from Old Navy (or as my son calls it - Old Maybe). I apologize for the utter crappiness of the blackberry photos you are about to view.



Look! What a DEAL! Pants for $14.47! Buy them. Take them home. Let's see how much they were marked down.






Aaaaawwwww. Maybe next time. As you may be able to see in this blurry ass picture, the price underneath the clearance tag is exactly the same as the regular price on the regular tag.

Glorious! Beautiful! Really? Like you couldn't take off $1 or even a few cents?


I'm onto your games, Old Maybe. Fool me once...

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Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

watching Dr. Who

I like sci fi.

My husband does not.

Therefore, I do not get to watch sci fi shows very often. This fact makes me very sad. It’s not that I’m forbidden from watching that stuff. My husband just has a tendency to make fun of it.

I used to try to watch Star Trek Next Gen reruns with him. He made fun of them, said they were cheesy. They are cheesy sometimes, but they are also awesome. I grew up on that shiz.

When I tried to watch various shows on the sci fi channel, he would walk into the room and immediately ask, “What the hell are you watching?”

[sad face, channel click]

I knew what was coming – more mockery of an awesome genre.

I recently started watching reruns of Dr. Who. I managed to catch it a few times on Sci Fi (aka SyFy, bleck) when the husband wasn’t around. I liked the episodes I saw, but then I just kind of forgot about it.

I finally got tired of seeing all of these references to Dr. Who on the internet, etc. It seemed like everyone was having all this fun watching it but me. I started to feel left out.

I set out on this mission to watch Dr. Who, all of it from 2005 to present. AND, it turns out that Netflix has the seasons available for streaming.

I watched an episode with the husband. I think he may actually like it! He said he liked it anyway, which means that I may actually get to catch up some time this century.

He did say it was cheesy. Of course it is. But at least he’s willing to watch it, hopefully without making too much fun. Rejoice!

_________________________
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1