A little more about Adrian Jones

Engineering student, Author, Video Game Developer, Software Entrepreneur, Sports Media Creator, Art Curator. More at aSaigon/CreativeMorning.

Wild Wild East - An American memoir of uncommon circumstance: Now available for download!

The book, Wild Wild East is finally ready for download - well, the first 70 pages anyway - or you can read it from the comfort of your own screen right here:


Wild Wild East - An American memoir of uncommon circumstance

For those who are not fans of the book-reading format, or it's just to damn small to read, download the standard view here:

Get me the big copy. This one sucks!

Most of you are aware that the Wild Wild East Dailies (a full-time job in and of itself) is just a thinly veiled attempt at supporting and selling a book about my transfer from the US to Korea and parts unknown (who knew a TV show about Mongolian Olympians would have been in the mix? - filmed in goddamn Mongolia!) but a very small percentage have ever actually checked my sister-site to give it a go - or it's just too bleeding hard to read on the net. So here, without further adieu, is a way to download the PDF file of your choosing. You can print it out and use it in the birdcage later. Enjoy. And please comment.

BLURB: (The publisher's sales pitch) Part memoir, part travelogue, part historical guide and part American business review, Wild Wild East follows the adventures of one businessman in his quest to have his creative life make sense. From an adoption agency in Manhattan to the board rooms of corporate America and then on to the far east, WWE weaves a story from 1995 through 2005 and beyond with flashbacks from the author's life that grow chronologically until they catch up with him in real time. Throughout the telling the author travels the globe through over 30 countries and the flashbacks occur every time he takes a trip, both before and after, usually when he is on a plane when there is plenty of time for reflection. In this way the story builds upon itself in both complexity and understanding from the reader as to why the central character makes the decisions he does and travels the roads of fortune or less fortune as the case unfolds.




And for our Portugese speaking readers?

Wild Wild East - An American memorial da circunstância incomum: Agora disponível para download!

O livro, Wild Wild East está finalmente pronta para download - bem, os primeiros 70 páginas mesmo assim - ou você pode lê-lo a partir do conforto de sua própria tela aqui:
Wild Wild East - An American memorial da circunstância incomum

Para aqueles que não são fãs do livro-leitura formato, ou é só a maldita pequena para ler, fazer o download do modo de exibição padrão aqui:

Tirem-me o grande cópia. Esta uma merda!

A maioria de vocês estão cientes de que o Wild Wild East diários (um emprego a tempo inteiro em si) é apenas um pouco velada tentativa de apoiar e vender um livro sobre os E.U. de minha transferência para a Coreia e peças desconhecida (que o diabo sabia um programa de TV sobre os atletas mongol teria sido no mix? - filmado em Mongólia maldito!), mas uma percentagem muito pequena já efectivamente verificados minha irmã-site para lhe dar um ir - ou é simplesmente muito difícil de ler sangramento na net . Até aqui, sem mais adeus, é um caminho para fazer o download do arquivo PDF de sua preferência. Você pode imprimi-lo e usá-lo na gaiola mais tarde. Apreciar. Por favor comentar.

Sinopse: (As vendas da editora pitch) Parte autobiografia, parte Travelogue, parte histórica e parte guia American Business Review, Wild Wild Oriente segue as aventuras de um empresário, na sua busca de ter sua vida criativa faz sentido. A partir de uma agência adopção em Manhattan para o conselho salas de empresas americanas e, em seguida, para o Extremo Oriente, WWE tece uma história a partir de 1995 a 2005 e mais além com flashbacks da vida do autor que crescem em ordem cronológica até que apanhar com ele em tempo real. Ao longo de todo o dizer, o autor percorre o mundo através de mais de 30 países, e os flashbacks ocorrem toda vez que ele tem uma visita, tanto antes como depois, geralmente quando ele está em um avião, quando há uma abundância de tempo para reflexão. Desta forma, a história baseia-se em ambos os complexidade e compreensão do leitor quanto à razão pela qual a personagem central toma as decisões que ele faz e percorre os caminhos da fortuna fortuna ou menos como o caso se desdobra.

Can You Spot Rejection?

The life of a writer is filled with rejection. In fact the lives of creative people in general are filled with rejection. I remember my high school art teacher, Mrs. Partridge, critiquing my latest masterpiece with the direct and pointed observation "David, I'm sorry but you have no taste". Fair enough. She was of the classical school and I was involved in 1960-70's hardline minimalist abstract expressionism the likes of Frank Stella. Honestly, I don't even think much about Stella today, but at the time I had so completely rejected realism that my tonal studies of colours and shapes were such complete universes that I could loose myself inside them for weeks during their manufacture. They were my drugs, and I loved them.

I remember another teacher saying the problem with all artists was that they were lazy. "They think that once they've had the idea that the process is complete.", he said, "They don't think taking the time to make the painting or sculpture is worthwhile because the idea will remain the same". I didn't see it that way at all.

One of my first impressions of the way people perceived art was at a spring school courtyard exhibition. Staying well out of the way of guests so as not to give away that I was the creator, I listened to incredibly precise delineations of my perceived mental state, imagination, harmony, disillusionment, and documentation of said mental gymnastics so as to clearly point out that I was either terminally disturbed or a farking genius. And I laughed secretly and pretty damn loudly inside. Absolutely 100% of the crap these purveyors of fine art were spewing was inaccurate – at least to me. My paintings were colour and shape studies only – at least that's all I intended them to be. Maybe there were a bunch of Adler graduates in the crowd, but I doubt it – not in Moline, Illinois.

The critiques would continue, through my editorial work, theatre performances and yet even more art exhibits. I may not have had any taste, but I was certainly learning how to get a buzz going. No two critiques were the same. No two critics agreed. And all of it was good. I made stuff and people talked about it. That seemed a good enough occupation of my time to me – the trick then was to figure out how to make a living out of it.

Making a living at creation has turned out to be not much different than maintaining any other job. There are some tasks ones does to bring home the bacon and others one does for personal growth. You can keep a pretty good job so long as you don't appear to be completely and totally self serving. Those who sit in a building and bite the hands that feed them (ad agencies, music companies, magazines, newspapers, etc.) by saying what great fucking talents they are and decrying being chained to things like office hours and actual clients or consumers are probably just hacks. They miss the point that maybe one day that job will be gone and nobody will buy their fucking book or screenplay.

"Pay up Shakespeare – bar's closing".

Writing books is the sort of thing one does for personal growth. In the early stages it certainly will not pay any bills. But just writing it down is one thing – selling it is quite another. And so I'm back to the critiques, from agents, readers, friends and potential publishers and even people I don't know at all.

So let's play a game!

Below are actual statements made by individuals about the work on this blog and the book Wild Wild East. Some of the statements are from friends and fans – some are from actual rejection letters. See if you can guess which ones are rejections and which ones are sincere compliments – then, after you've had a good go of it, mouse-over the phrases and discover their true origins. You may be surprised.

"Your writing is very vivid and smart..."

"As you surely know, you
are an extremely good writer"...

"Your story reads very well,
and you have the ability to promote it"...

"I have to admit it's getting better ...
it's getting better all the time."

"Your blog is fun, insightful, and says
more about you than the topics."

"I like your book, btw..."

I'm A Crack Addicted Underwater Basket-weaving Aborginal Holocaust Survivor And Now A Best-Selling New York Times Author!

"Meet Margaret Seltzer, pen name Margaret Jones, who until this week was a half-white, half-Indian gangland drug runner who grew up a foster child in predominately black South Central Los Angeles. Her memoir was hailed as a "raw... remarkable book" in the Times, won her tentative online admirers and became the 28th best selling memoir on Amazon after it was released Friday. Of course Seltzer basically made her whole "memoir" up, being entirely white, having grown up in the predominately white San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles, having gone to a fancy private school and having been raised by her biological family. Her book tour was supposed to start today in Eugene, Oregon but her publisher, a division of Penguin Group, has canceled all that and recalled her books. How did she get caught? Her lies worked too well: Seltzer's adulatory press was her unraveling. After a profile last week in the House & Home section of the Times, Jones' older sister called her publisher to rat her out." – You can read the whole sordid affair on Gawker.

Seeing this whole business, and having a book myself in the works, set the wheels a spinning in that little devious mind of mine. I riffled through the stack of rejection letters, poured over my frustration with agents and editors incapable of using simple email or fearing attachments because they're still on Windows 95 and decided to do a little guerilla work myself.

I spent a few hours compiling a short-list of those agents whom I had heard nothing from in response to my query letters of last year and sent the following brief note:

"Maybe publishers are now ready for a real memoir."

No preface. No mention of the above story. I didn't have to. Every agent and editor was busy at their respective water cooler wondering who was going to take a beating for this debacle and waiting for axes to fall.

And guess what? I got two requests for proposals from agents on both coasts. Fucking amazing. They didn't even know what my book was about. And maybe reality TV has finally taken it's toll.

Both new agents are still technologically Flinstonian and think that mailing large reams of paper, through communists censors, in a third-world country is a cheap walk in the park, but, I'm making progress. Or at least as much progress as one can make, dealing with an arcane industry that hasn't seen what the music business has done to itself in the last 10 years.

Two more agents on the hunt! Maybe I can sell the ones I don't pick on Ebay later.

Wild Wild East. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.