Martha Millard – corey j. white

Static Ruin Released

Today sees the release of Static Ruin, the third and final book of the VoidWitch Saga. You can order it from your favourite bookseller now, or wait a couple of months for the audio release. I recently did an interview with Paul Semel about Static Ruin, Repo Virtual, and other odds and ends, so check that out.

It’s been a long journey getting to this point. On this date three years ago I was working away at the first draft of Killing Gravity, confident that I had something great on my hands, but never really thinking that it would be the thing to kick-start my writing career. I’ll always be grateful to my editor Carl Engle-Laird for taking a chance on KG and on me, and I’m so thankful to Carl and the rest of the Tor.com Publishing team for supporting me across three novellas. And a big thank you to Martha Millard for helping to guide me along the early career path (I hope you enjoy your retirement!).

The seed for Static Ruin was planted within the pages of Killing Gravity, and now with the third book, Mars comes full circle, finally facing her past and the spectre of her father. Killing Gravity was quite a personal book in some ways, whereas Void Black Shadow was more political. Static Ruin returns to the personal, dealing with questions of family, expectation, disappointment, pain, and all the rest. It’s about parents, yes, but there’s a reason why I dedicated the book to my two sisters. Our parents can damage us in ways that they never intend, in ways that we can’t truly grasp until decades later. This doesn’t make them bad parents, it just makes them fallible, human. But for those of us who have siblings that we grew up with, they’re right there beside us – they’re hurt with us and sometimes by us, and they can hurt us too. But there’s a connection there that’s different to the ones we share with our parents. They’re our allies and enemies, our co-conspirators and occasional snitches, they’re distant, but never far from our hearts. They’re part of the memories that form the very foundation of our selves, and we have the privilege of growing up alongside them, watching them mature into adulthood with all the joys and pains that can bring.

All of this is just to say: Carlie, Jessica, I love you both, and you’re stronger and braver than I will ever be.

REPO VIRTUAL Announced

I’ve been busily working away on a novel, and now I can finally talk about it. REPO VIRTUAL is a cyberpunk heist novel, due for publication in 2020 – the most cyberpunk-sounding year yet.

Carl said this in the announcement:

It’s a special pleasure to guide an author through multiple stages of their early career. Since I acquired Corey J. White’s first novella, Killing Gravity, I’ve had the joy of watching his craft develop from book to book. In November he’ll complete his Voidwitch Saga trilogy with Static Ruin, capping off the story of Mariam Xi, one of the most interesting and dangerous characters in space. And now I have the honor of announcing that Tor.com Publishing has acquired Corey J. White’s debut novel, Repo Virtual, a cyberpunk heist story that layers action across real and virtual realities in the hunt for the first true strong AI. Repo Virtual was acquired in a deal negotiated by Martha Millard of Sterling Lord Literistic.

And here’s my comment:

I’m so excited to be working again with Carl Engle-Laird and the rest of the team at Tor.com Publishing on my debut novel. They were a joy to work with on the Voidwitch books, and I’m thrilled to be taking this next journey with them. Repo Virtual will be a fully 21st Century take on cyberpunk, showing the environmental and sociopolitical repercussions of the rampant corporations that cyberpunk warned us about, and perhaps helped to normalise.

Needless to say, I’m really excited to be working on my debut novel. It’s totally different to working on a novella (or even three novellas), but I think I’ve got something special here. I can’t wait to share it with you all.

More news and info as it comes to hand.

Good Enough

I have a problem. Marlee says I’m addicted to workahol, but that’s not it. I work hard because I’m driven, but I’m driven because nothing is good enough. Therein lies the problem.

Smarter people than I have written about the many problems of social media [citation needed], but the problem for me is that I find myself comparing my work/career/success to the gestalt of Writer Twitter. They are constantly being nominated for awards. They are constantly winning awards. They constantly appear on bestseller lists. They constantly get starred reviews, and film/TV deals, and a million other opportunities. In short, whatever successes ‘They’ have, my sick, broken brain sees only in terms of what I don’t have.

This is ridiculous. This is unhelpful. This is incredibly damaging to my mental health. This is also utter bullshit. On the one hand, how fucking entitled is my subconscious being? And on the other hand, I’m comparing my singular self to a group of writers, including some who have been at it for years, or even decades.

Now, beyond the entitlement and the unfair comparisons (which are two entirely different brands of bullshit), the other side effect here is that I do not enjoy the (objectively many) successes I have had. I want to blame Australia’s tall poppy syndrome (and, let’s be honest, my depression), because I find it impossible to celebrate any of my successes for fear of being seen as a conceited arsehole. But, that’s only half of it. I also can’t celebrate because nothing is good enough. I celebrated signing the contracts for Killing Gravity and Void Black Shadow, but everything since then has been…I don’t know. Good, but not good enough, I guess.

So, I’m going to do something difficult, and I’m going to celebrate my successes in an effort to rewire my broken brain. Please don’t think I’m a conceited arsehole, because this is actually entirely unnatural for me. Here goes…

I have a trilogy of novellas with an incredible imprint attached to one of the biggest SF publishers in the world. Seriously, Tor.com Publishing is putting out some of my favourite books right now, and they also chose to publish me. Multiple times.
Over five thousand people have parted with their hard-earned money for a copy of Killing Gravity. Some of them even liked it. (Honestly, this is one I struggle with because it seems so small a number compared to…I don’t even know what. But hell, it’s my very first book, in a niche format, so 5K is a number I should be proud of. If you’re one of those 5K, thank you. It means the world to me.)
Warren Ellis, one of my favourite writers, took time out of his busy schedule to read and review both Killing Gravity and Void Black Shadow.
I signed with Martha Millard, the literary agent who represents William fucking Gibson, Ian McDonald, Michael Swanwick, and other well-known and well-respected figures in science-fiction. (Cadwell Turnbull is another early career author that Martha signed, and I feel like he’s going to be A Big Deal down the track, so check out his work now and get on board early.)
I’ve had the opportunity to go on tour with the likes of Terry Brooks and some other fantastic local and international authors.
And other exciting stuff that I can’t even talk about yet. Seriously, some big news that I should be fucking ecstatic about, but depression broke my brain.

Killing Gravity only came out thirteen months ago (give or take). That’s no time at all. My career has barely even begun, and if I let myself relax for one fucking second I’ll realise that things are already looking bright. So maybe, just maybe, I should cut myself some fucking slack. Maybe self-loathing isn’t a healthy motivator. Maybe, if I try, I’ll find a better way.

Sorry, Marlee, I don’t think I’m going to work any less, but what I will do is try and enjoy where I’m at right now, instead of beating myself up about where I “should” be.