Jason Arnopp's Blog: Jason Arnopp's Blog, page 16

Write Like You're Dying

This concept has been in the air for a while: write like you're dying. There it is, plain and simple. Write like you've only got 12 months left on this Earth. 

So why might this rather morbid technique be worthwhile? For a start, it focuses the mind, as the prospect of death tends to. Most writers are fortunate enough to have a neverending flow of ideas running through them. Too many, in fact.  Some concepts are dreamed up then unwisely forgotten by those who don't have a notebook o...

When Faced With Long Hotel Room Corridors...

... I become Danny Torrance.

Bestselling Beast!

It's been quite the weekend.  My horror novella Beast In The Basement was officially released on Friday and ended up quite high in the Amazon charts.  I've been pleasantly surprised by sales.  One of the first and most astonishing things which happened was this, on the Thrillers chart:



Sandwiched in between two Stephen King books?  One of which is one of the very finest horror stories ever told?  It was ludicrous, but nevertheless it happened.  Madness.

During Frid...

Beast In The Basement Unleashed

Hello!  My new novella, Beast In The Basement, is now available to buy at all Amazon sites.

It's a dark horror-thriller and rather hard to discuss without giving too much away.  I'll hand you over to the blurb...

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"You can only live in a world of make-believe for so long, before reality comes calling.  It always does."

In a huge house in the English countryside, a reclusive, recently bereaved and increasingly unstable author toils over a book which will close the trilogy of be...

#RECvirus: What's Going On?

These days, you don't tend to see film PR companies going the extra mile.  Most of them don't go a mile at all, simply e-mailing a press release to all their contacts and hoping for the odd bite.

Hats off, then, to Fetch Publicity, who early yesterday morning unleashed this, in reference to promo discs for the new sequel [REC] Genesis...



You can tell that a hell of a lot of work went into this.  Either that, or the whole thing's real.

I don't think it's real.

Do I?

No.  Of course I...

Digital Dilemma

You know, I'm a funny one when it comes to hobbies and interests. I have several, but am fickle with them. I become obsessed with one, while going slightly cooler on the others. The obsession lasts for a while, before I switch focus to another interest.

Those other interests never go away altogether - I'm not that fickle. It's more that they go soft-focus in my mind's eye. Which makes things difficult, in the sense that it's difficult to throw too much stuff away, in case I suddenly become pro...

The Man Inside: In Cinemas Today

The Man Inside is in cinemas from today!  In case I haven't blathered about it enough, this is the hard-hitting urban drama which Stormhouse director Dan Turner wrote and directed, and I script-edited.  It stars Ashley 'Bashy' Thomas, Peter Mullan, Michelle Ryan, David Harewood, Jason Maza and plenty more.

That's the second film released this year, and indeed month, that I've worked on (the first, of course, being Stormhouse, which seems to be doing good business on DVD for a non-pro...

The Making Of Stormhouse

In some parts of the UK, one piece of received film-making wisdom has been allowed to run amok.  

It's nigh on impossible to make a film, say the cynics, unless you're willing to jump through various flaming hoops for some draconian film-funding agency. “Credit crunch, blah-blah-blah, no-one wants to put money into films any more, blah-blah, quack-quack”.

What a giddily teetering pile of bobbins this really is.
If you decide that 'the system' is out to hobble you, and prevent you from...

Seven Years After 7/7

I don't have much of a story to tell about the London bombings which we've come to know as '7/7' (two numbers which, conveniently, don't confuse American folk, who have their own peculiar month/day configuration).  Nevertheless, the seventh of July 2005, seven years ago today, feels like a significant event because it changed the way I thought about life.  Mainly for the better, oddly.

That morning, at about 9.10am, I travelled through London's public transport system, on the top of...

New Official Facebook Page

They're funny things, these official Facebook pages.  Many writers, projects and companies have one, but their impact and appeal seem uncertain.  I decided to find out for myself, by creating one.

One thing I discovered along the way, is that this kind of Facebook page is public.  You don't have to be logged in to see it, so in that respect it's much like a website.  I tend to keep my personal Facebook profile for friends, family and colleagues, so it makes sense to separat...