The Last Days of Jack Sparks (40 page)

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?