The Last Days of Jack Sparks
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jason Arnopp is a British author and scriptwriter. He has written official tie-in fiction for Doctor Who (BBC) and Friday the 13th (New Line Cinema), plus comedy for Radio 4. He wrote and executive-produced the 2011 Edinburgh Film Festival selection Stormhouse and script-edited Peter Mullan’s 2012 film The Man Inside. His background is in journalism: he has worked on titles such as Heat, Q, The Word, Kerrang!, SFX and Doctor Who Magazine. He has an official website at JasonArnopp.com and can be found on Twitter @jasonarnopp.
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INTERVIEW WITH JASON ARNOPP
Did you always want to be an author?
This seems to be the case, because Doctor Who inspired me to write my own comic strips based on the show from the age of four. Yeah, Doctor Who has a lot to answer for. By the grand old age of twelve, I was writing and illustrating prose stories starring my own characters, which my very cool headmistress turned into bound books, then installed them in the school library. Looking back, that was the first real validation of my stuff: the kind of justification that us desperately needy writers all crave to enable us to crawl to our desks each morning. A few years later, rock journalism swept me off on a great big tangent for about a decade. But I suppose I was still telling stories.
What have been your most memorable moments as a journalist?
My favourite trip abroad was probably joining Manic Street Preachers on their Japanese tour in 1994. My favourite rock interview was a drunkenly fractious semi-confrontation with legendary metallers Pantera in a Baton Rouge beer garden. My favourite non-rock interview was Doctor Who legend Tom Baker in and around his Sussex home. In terms of memorable moments, though, I’ve received death threats; been surrounded by enraged, gun-wielding security guards in Vatican City; and found myself tangled up in a 1993 tabloid front cover story about a TV celebrity. I should probably tell you more about those things someday, on my blog.
How have you found it working on tie-in fiction for such popular shows and films like Doctor Who and Friday the 13th?
It’s great fun when you actually love the properties, as I do with both Doctor Who and Friday the 13th. You get to play with long-established and utterly iconic toys. The only real downside is that you’re only borrowing those toys and so there are certain things you obviously can’t do with them. That’s why it’s also great to create your own fictional toy-boxes, because then you have total freedom.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
It’s healthy to understand that there are no magical secret shortcuts. Don’t pay good money to anyone who claims to offer any – and when given writing advice, treat most rigid absolutes with a healthy degree of caution. Read a lot, write a lot and resist the burning urge to show your stuff to pivotal industry folk until it shines like a thousand suns. Stop worrying about how you could never do what other authors do. Chances are they couldn’t do what you do either, because you’re completely unique. So be yourself and explore your own weird preoccupations through compelling stories. If you ever feel stuck or intimidated, write with the attitude that no one will ever read it. Because then you’ll probably create your best work.
Do you hate social media?
No! Not today, anyway. I engage with it on a daily basis, but admittedly there’s a love/hate thing going on. I love the way it allows us all to connect faster than ever before. And I hate the way it allows us all to connect faster than ever before. Good and bad things come of those speedy connections, and I’m kind of astonished by all the binary certainty that social media seems to encourage. I do constantly wonder what the internet has done to our brains. But all things considered, I suppose I’d prefer to have social media than not.
What’s coming up next for you?
I’m working on my second novel for the mighty Orbit, which is provisionally entitled Jack Sparks: Ha Ha Suckers, I’m Alive. Just a bit of fun there. But yes, the second novel, for sure. I’ve also been releasing free books via JasonArnopp.com in the form of stand-alone short fiction, and plan to continue this behaviour. Lastly, I intend to keep spending money I don’t really have on old-school VHS films. All of this, while I’m dressed as a goat and shrieking Satan’s name every 666 seconds. Obviously.
Look out for the unmissable and highly original new thriller by M. R. Carey, bestselling author of The Girl With All the Gifts . . .
Fellside is a maximum security prison on the edge of the Yorkshire moors. It’s not the kind of place you’d want to end up. But it’s where Jess Moulson could be spending the rest of her life.
It’s a place where even the walls whisper.
And one voice belongs to a little boy with a message for Jess.
Will she listen?
Table of Contents
Foreword by Alistair Sparks
Part I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six-Six-Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Part II
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Afterword by Alistair Sparks
Note from The Publisher
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Interview with Jason Arnopp