Shawn Starkweather

Hello friends,

I've got my fake writer glasses back on and I'm growing my beard back out. I must be in the process of writing my second book! I've moved between genres so while 'The Devil Whispered' was science fiction noir, I'm now moving to fantasy. This new series will be comprised of three books and I'm just over halfway through writing the first of them.

(Please feel free to share this to anyone on your lists that might be interested!)

I'm getting to the point that a group of beta readers would be really helpful, so I'm reaching out to see who might be interested in being a part of that process.

What I'm looking for specifically are people who:

A: (Most Importantly) Are really excited about reading the book and getting early access.

B: Have the ability to prioritize it so that they can start reading pretty much immediately and get feedback and input back to me quickly. (This is the part I want people to really consider before they offer)

C: Understand that it's a work in progress. It's a first draft and currently about 20 chapters, with somewhere between 15-20 more to come.

D: Can provide constructive feedback about their experience.

E: You'll need to be comfortable reading from a file, not a book in hand. I'll be uploading Word documents to Google Drive or sending them directly via email, so think about whether or not you could get through a book this way.

I'll probably only pick around five people, so please don't offer unless you feel really confident that the things above describe you!
I'll create a group somewhere (email or Facebook) that we'll all use to communicate with one another, shoot feedback around and discuss the story.

Please reach out with a direct message if you want to be involved!

(Photo for visibility and FB algorithms)

I recently entered a writing contest, largely in part to the cool theme it was centered around. The requirements were that it was a post-apocalyptic short story of no more than 2,000 words and that somewhere in the story it needed to feature a heart-shaped locket.

If you'd like to check out the submission, I'll post a link to where you can read the story I entered! Please share with anyone you think would enjoy it, and let me know what you think of it! Fair warning, it's a little dark, but hey, it's post-apocalyptic. It's hard to -not- be dark in that genre and I'm already kind of spooky.

https://vocal.media/fiction/in-the-end-4hemyr0xsm

In The End A Short Story by Shawn Starkweather

It’s long been a dream of mine to collaborate with a talented narrator and produce a great audiobook. Today, that dream was realized and The Devil Whispered is now available through Audible, Amazon and (soon) iTunes.

When I began looking into the production process, I was pretty concerned that I wouldn’t be able to afford the kind of talent I was hoping to find. It’s a terribly difficult and time consuming job and it requires working with someone who not only feels passionate about the characters but has the flexibility and capacity to take the characters in the direction you want them to go.

After hearing Adam McLaughlin’s demo reel, I knew he had what it took to bring these characters to life. His range of accents was awesome, encompassing nearly all of the characters nationalities that I had written and his level of commitment was obvious. I took a shot in the dark and reached out to him directly through social media to see if he might be available for hire.

Right off the bat, Adam was friendly and accommodating. He knew I was a first time author without a huge budget and went out of his way to be affordable for me as well. After a video conference where Adam demonstrated his idea for each of the voices, we collaborated to get each one to where I wanted it. He was extremely graceful in his willingness to make adjustments and tailor them to match my vision for each character.

It was really exciting for me as an author to hear the characters jump off the page and come to life, and it also felt great to be working with someone who had as much passion and dedication to the project as I did. I can’t stress how much collaborating with the right people can make or break a project. You inspire them, and they inspire you in turn, drawing off of one another’s creativity to give clarity and focus to the work.

Every time he’d upload a completed chapter, Denise and I would sit in the living room and listen with excitement. Sometimes it felt like I was experiencing the book for the first time myself. If I caught anything off or something that I wanted to change, Adam was completely willing to make the adjustments and upload the edited take. It really felt like having a partner in crime for something that I had, in all honesty, been losing steam on after the release. It kept me enthusiastic about this next stage of the release.

For me, it feels really exciting knowing that the book will be there, narrated by a professional for anyone to listen to into the foreseeable future. I’m proud of the work we accomplished together and looking forward to sharing the experience with all of you. If you like audiobooks, or find that reading the paperback or kindle version of the story was too time-consuming, I highly recommend taking the journey and picking up the narrated version.

It’s available now, through Audible: (If you don’t have an account but are considering signing up for monthly credits, please consider using the link below to do so as there are kickbacks associated to it)

https://www.audible.com/pd/B0955337FW/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-258278&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_258278_rh_us

Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Devil-Whispered-Cyberpunk-Detective-Story-ebook/dp/B08XPVNDHR

And will be available on iTunes within the next couple of days (at which point I’ll update the link here).

A final note as a reminder, anyone who feels inspired to leave a review on the Amazon store page would be doing me a huge favor. The reviews really help drive traffic and are one of the best ways to support the success of the book. Rating the book is great, but the written reviews, even if simple, are something other folks rely on strongly when making the decision to pick it up. The audiobook will also be lonely for reviews on Audible, so if you finish and you like what you heard, please remember to write a brief review!
Once again, thank you to everyone who has supported me by purchasing the book and to everyone who decides to support the audiobook as well. We put a lot of work into making this happen and I hope you enjoy the experience!

The Devil Whispered Check out this great listen on Audible.com. Retired special-forces commander Jacobi Slate is drawn into a downward-spiraling vortex of fear and doubt, while investigating a brutal murder committed by an old friend. As evidence mounts that someone else might be pulling strings from the shadows, Jac.....

Another great review! Yay!

https://novelnewsnetwork.wordpress.com/2021/03/23/the-devil-whispered-by-stark_books-tour-by-rabtbooktours/

The Devil Whispered by @Stark_Books – Tour by @RABTBookTours Science-Fiction/Mystery/Detective Date Published: 3/1/2021 Retired special-forces commander Jacobi Slate is drawn into a downward-spiraling vortex of fear and doubt while investigating a brutal m…

Well, it isn't the longest review I've gotten, but at least it's a good one!

https://www.texasbooknook.com/2021/03/book-tour-book-review-devil-whispered.html

Book Tour & Book Review: The Devil Whispered by @Stark_Books #blogtour #bookreview #giveaway #scifi #mystery #detective #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours Science-Fiction/Mystery/Detective Date Published: 3/1/2021 Retired special-forces commander Jacobi Slate is drawn into a downw...

Guest post on Salt and Novels if anyone would like to give the site a visit and give the post a read!

https://saltandnovels.wordpress.com/2021/03/10/guest-post-writing-the-devil-whispered-by-shawn-starkweather/

[Guest Post]: Writing “The Devil Whispered” by Shawn Starkweather Today, I have a guest author Shawn Starkweather on my blog. Shawn talks about writing his science fiction/mystery novel The Devil Whispered. Guest Post As the date of publication for my debut novel…

What A Launch!

Wow! What an awesome launch. I can’t thank everyone enough for all of the energy that went into supporting me and the book over the last couple of days. It’s really heartwarming to see all of the social media posts sharing the link, and to read the kind words people have put out there.

I’m not usually very good at promotional stuff. It’s hard for me to ask people to focus their attention on me, since I tend to lean toward being super self-reliant and largely independent. But the truth is that art has a hard time getting very far out into the world without the support and attention from the communities that surround it. I really couldn’t have asked for more of a receptive and uplifting response – often from folks who don’t even really care much for the genre but wanted to support my success regardless.
My mood has been flickering back and forth between excitement to share the novel with everyone, and reluctance to feel very hopeful about associating the initial burst of energy that these projects can come alive with to a realistic opportunity at relying on writing as a career. Monetarily, it can really take quite some time for authors to even see any return on their investments – let alone be capable of sustaining themselves with their writing. The industry is extremely intimidating and difficult to break into. Like most art, the people who are already successful tend to get the most continued support and attention while people struggling to be recognized fight tooth and nail for every step forward.

What I’ve seen over the past few days, though, is a real concerted community effort to uplift someone and their art that has just left me feeling extremely grateful. Regardless of how things inevitably turn out with the books success beyond the boundaries of our social network, I’m just feeling super positive that I am surrounded by a community of people who go to these lengths to support each other. We might not be able to stop the corporate machine cogs that keep the engine running for systems that propel only those who play by their rules, but we can sure as hell make some noise and drop a big rock in their pond. And who knows, it just might be big enough to get ripples into the currents they monitor and control!

Speaking more literally than figuratively, self-promotion is a serious uphill battle and it can be really hard to succeed in a world that’s more or less been designed around passing through big publishing companies as gatekeepers. I never really had illusions that I would be propelled into stardom from writing one novel. What I did wonder, is if it would feel worthwhile to continue writing if even with the kind of support you have all shown, I still couldn’t get that viral magic to break out into the world at large. The answer is yes. It’s totally worth it! I feel so fulfilled just seeing this level of participation with something I’m creating and putting out into the world, and by the encouragement you have all given me.
It’s been an awesome reminder that art is meant to fulfil you simply through the process of creating it, and more so when you release it into the world to be enjoyed by the people you love. That alone makes this worthwhile, but it’s not always so evident until you see these kinds of community responses. I might have no idea how I’m going to support myself while I do it, but I feel pretty committed to continuing to write and tell stories. That’s because for one, I feel good when I’m doing it, and two, I get to have experiences like this one when I share my work with all of you.

Thank you for being so amazing!

It’s official! I’m now a published author! My debut novel, The Devil Whispered, is available for purchase on Amazon in both Kindle e-book and Paperback formats.

It’s a mystery/sci-fi story that takes place in San Francisco in the near future and it’s about a retired special-forces captain who’s asked to investigate a murder by an old friend who’s convinced he was the murderer but has no recollection of the event. There are quite a few twists and turns but the main themes of the story are about memory, control, and consequences.

For anyone purchasing the paperback, I’d ask the small favor that you consider spending the 99 cents to add the e-book to your library as well. Amazon has a strange rating system, and both the e-book and the paperback are scored separately so this would help my sales rating increase for both products. Sales rating determines where the book can appear in regard to the daily/weekly charts and as a recommended product, so in a way it’s a form of marketing in its own right.

Sharing the link to the book and letting people know who might be interested in either the science fiction or mystery genre’s is also really helpful! Getting the word out there, particularly to communities beyond our own can have a big impact.

Lastly, if you enjoy the writing – please leave me a review on Amazon! These are the best tools in the box for encouraging folks who are curious to buy the book.

I’ve received so much support throughout this process, so I’d like to offer a HUGE thank you to everyone who has taken time out of their schedules to participate.

Go forth and (hopefully) enjoy the story!

Amazon Purchase Link
https://www.amazon.com/dp/173618640X

Website (Join the Mailing List for my monthly Newsletter!)
https://shawnstarkweather.com

The Devil Whispered: A Cyberpunk Detective Noir Story The Devil Whispered: A Cyberpunk Detective Noir Story

Hello friends!

I've been working on a website over the last few months, and I think it's finally done. On it, you'll find an archive of my blog posts, a way to join the mailing list, information on the upcoming novel, links to contributing artist profiles, an author bio, and more!

If you'd like to help me bring the site to life a little bit, I've put together a list of things that would be really great below.

1. Visit the site at https://shawnstarkweather.com

2. Sign up on the mailing list if you would like to receive a monthly newsletter that I'll be putting out once the novel has been released with information on upcoming projects, promotions and things like that.

3. Explore the site, visit the contributing artists pages, and particularly comment on the Blog and give the site a little bit of life/activity so people coming in from the outside world get a sense that it's a welcoming place to be!

4. Let me know if you run into any errors or if it looks awkward/wrong on whatever you're viewing it from. This will help me make adjustments for those kinds of devices going forward.

And that's it! Thanks in advance for your help with this. Stay warm and safe everyone!

- Shawn

Shawn Starkweather - Author Home Page This is the webpage for author Shawn Starkweather. This site provides access to his blog, newsletter, and bio. You'll also find information on previous and upcoming books here.

Hey all! Welcome! I just want to say that I'm really grateful to everyone who accepted the invitation to the page for your support and your interest in my upcoming novel. Thank you for being here with me!

Half The Battle
December 26th, 2020

Transmissions from the Mind of a Serial Overthinker - Vol 2

Full disclosure – I’ve wanted to write fiction novels since I was a kid. Other kids wanted to be scientists or astronauts, but I wanted to be a writer with crazy hair and a bushy beard, looking out at a lake somewhere and bashing away at a keyboard. I used to use my free periods at school to hit the computer lab and write fantasy stories. This is back when the computer screens all displayed a glowing green text and you stored your data on eight inch floppy disks which you scribbled your name on the label of. Eighty mighty kilobytes of data all held in that one fragile square. Those disks were lost to time, unfortunately. To be honest, I’d probably be pretty horrified now if I had the chance to read some of those stories, but at least I was giving it the ol’ Jr. High try.

So after three and a half decades of wanting to do this thing, I started wondering why I wasn’t. What was stopping me from doing this thing that I wanted to do so badly? If you’d asked, I’d have probably told you that working full time to make a little money for myself and a lot of money for the people in charge, had me run down. Or that when I got home, there was no way I could do anything but veg out in front of my computer for hours on end playing games since I was so mentally exhausted from trying to fit into that world. Those things might have had some truth to them.

But I’m older now – and maybe a little wiser. I understand that what we 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡 and what we 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡 can sometimes be defined by what we actually do when we have the choice. I could write a whole piece on that concept alone, but for now it’s sufficive to say it finally dawned on me that if I wanted to be a writer so badly, I’d better get off my ass and see if it was something I could actually do. Not do in the sense of “am I good enough” (that remains to be seen) but rather, do, in the sense of actually sitting down, turning off the distractions, and committing to getting something from my mind out into the physical world.

At the time of this glorious enlightenment I was of the mind that if I could just do that, then I could probably succeed in the field. Excited and feeling brazen with enthusiasm for this new journey, I committed to writing at least 1,000 words a day. It went so well that I moved up to 1,500 within two weeks. For three months I wrote, read the story out loud to my wife, contemplated the story out loud to my wife, debated the merits of every possible path out loud to my wife – needless to say, she is incredibly supportive and patient. I was so immersed in the process, I was dreaming scenes. The basic plot had been something I’d been throwing around for years (see above methods of procrastination), but the bulk of everything beyond the first chapter evolved in this way.

Towards the end the excitement grew as I approached completion. I had done it! I had formulated a cohesive plot and put the figurative pen to paper to bring it to life. I was soon to enter the illustrious author’s club, a club that I had secretly yearned to be a part of, self-published or otherwise, since I’d been a child. It felt good. It felt like I’d overcome some personal blockage to make progress on following a dream, because that’s exactly what it was. But as I started looking into the next steps of the process, I began to realize just how out of my depth I was.

I researched for hours - sometimes entire days, things that I hadn’t even considered. How do you get your book published? Do you self-publish or find a literary agent to represent you? What was a literary agent? These things were just the visible tip of an iceberg that was about to crash into the gently coasting pleasure boat that I’d been riding over the last few months. The rabbit hole goes so deep, I started feeling a bit like Alice, wandering through a realm that I didn’t understand, and wasn’t sure I ever would.

How will you market your book so that people are aware it exists? Do you have a website? Social media accounts on every relevant platform? I had a friend tell me that if I didn’t engage Reddit and get my karma up there, my book wasn’t likely to succeed. I didn’t even know how Reddit worked. I started posting questions to people to try and engage them and ask, what I thought, were fairly intellectual questions to start up enticing conversations that would contribute to getting up-votes, or karma. In the end, that entire endeavor just amounted to me desperately trying to get deep with the internet, which had no interest in anything of the sort.

To add insult to injury, I’d compare the lonely estrangement of my deviously contrived postulations to things like - live streams of an eleven year old child who had committed to playing the same thirty seconds of a song on piano for six hours without pause. There were over 5,000 people watching that. There was a live stream of a woman who wanted to share with everyone what it was like walking from her job to her house. That thoroughly entertained the 10,000 people who joined to watch. Someone posted the brilliant query - “What question sounds dumb, but is actually hard to answer?” It had over 2,000 people respond and up-vote it. And good for them! I am in full support of their success. Sadly, I had no idea how to emulate it and my Reddit career came to a crashing halt.

I started investigating strategies for launching a novel. You need Advanced Reader Copies sent out to people so that they are ready to review your book on day one. You need to have your marketing strategy ready so that you are launching ad campaigns at the same time you are hitting review quotas and peaking in categories relevant to your story. You need to understand the market, what people are looking for, if the time is optimal for release in your genre, who else is releasing at that time…the list goes on. If I hadn’t pulled myself out of that mire, I’d still be knee deep in the agonizing shame that came with the realization that I had no clue what I was doing.

All of that is before even considering editing, cover art, formatting your novel, looking into copyrights, registering at the library of congress, building a street team for deployment, and so much more. I think I’ve made my point though. I thought writing the book had been the hard part. I thought I’d succeeded, but I’d really only opened the door. It’s been a couple of months now, and I’ve spent every day trying to wrap my head around these things. I’ve put hundreds of hours into following threads like quantum strands - folding in on themselves and splitting into multitudes of possibility, each with the hope that an answer to just one of these questions might lay at the end. But, usually I just emerge with another question. Ah, the internet.

As my knowledge and awareness has grown, the multitude of possibilities has dwindled into vague understanding and questionable decisiveness, and I feel slightly less anxious and overwhelmed. Still, I can’t seem to shake the feeling that I’ll miss some crucial element – that some essential component to putting a book out into the world will slip through the cracks and cause the entire process to collapse. But I’m still here, at it every day, moving forward. The crazy thing is that you can go through all of this and still release a terrible book that no one likes or cares about. It’s all pretty scary, really. But if you want something, you have to try, right? If I’ve learned anything from all of this, it’s that I must really want it, because I’m doing it. Whatever comes from it, I’ll at least be able to tell myself I tried. Despite the overwhelmingly stacked odds against success in this field, somehow that feels good enough for me right now.

So It Begins...
November 25th, 2020

Transmissions From The Mind Of A Serial Overthinker - Vol 1

As an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy, I’ve been experiencing the machinations and designs of much greater minds than my own since early childhood. As I’m sure many of you can relate to, the imagination fostered from being so immersed in magic, futuristic concepts, and heroic adventure can be wielded as a powerful weapon against the monotony of the mundane.

My early years were spent exploring the forests of New England with a sturdy stick in my hand to combat the trolls and goblins that were undoubtedly hiding in the trees. My stuffed animals each had a name, a personality, and I cared more for their well-being than my own.

Sadly, I would later learn that a vivid imagination could only get me so far when it came to sustaining myself financially. I found that I was ill equipped to summon any passion for the washing of dishes or folding of pizza boxes. It wasn’t that I wasn’t capable of doing a good job, but that I never really cared about being great at something that meant so little to me.

I had all of these ideas and aspirations inside and I just wanted to share them with others. I had worlds full of magic, artificial intelligence, villains, and cybernetic samurai, bursting to come out. Anything less just seemed rudimentary and dull. The stress of feeling trapped and tumbling endlessly about within a system that had no room for any those things left me feeling depleted and incapable of producing art from my heart.

At the time, I think I simply lacked the perseverance and willpower to push through the barriers and find my way. People told me I should design games or write, but I didn’t see an easy path to that and, if I’m being honest, a part of me gave up.

That struggle never really ended. I got better at hiding it, until eventually my imagination and creativity began to take a back seat to the necessity to conform for the sake of survival. Over time, my excitement for being creative and productive was pushed to a dark corner in the back of my mind where it would remain, a prisoner to my responsible adult self, for nearly two decades.

But…I never completely lost sight of a deeper truth that what I really wanted to be doing was to be sharing my own machinations and designs with others. What I really wanted to be doing was to be helping to build a strong sense of wonder and imagination for people like me, and inspiring them to see the world in the same exciting light that I once had.

In May, I came across a copy of the first chapter to a story I’d started writing years ago. I’d mostly forgotten it, but when the chapter ended, I wanted more! It was a subtle reminder of where my strengths lie, and it inspired me to sit down and continue the story. The more I wrote, the more comfortable I felt, and the more I remembered how much this felt like something I was meant to be doing.

Now, at 43, I understand that you can’t achieve something that you never even try to attain, and that what matters most to me is living a life filled with the joy of knowing that I’m doing something that I’m meant to do – something that I’m truly passionate about. Armed with this newfound enthusiasm, I’m prepared to wield it like the cudgel I once defended the forests from hordes of goblins and trolls with and ward off the advance of any tedious cycles of normalcy wherever they date to rear their ugly head.

As the first step, I am excited to announce that my debut novel, ‘The Devil Whispered’ is complete and will be available on March 1st, 2021. It’s a near-future science fiction novel that I’m labeling a “Cyberpunk Detective Noir Story”. I hope that you will read it, and that it marks the beginning of a longstanding relationship in which I can mirror my own inspirations to provide you with the same sense of adventure that has been so meaningful to me throughout my life.