Peter Darbyshire's Blog

Why Access Copyright matters

I recently received my Access Copyright payment for this year, and it’s an important reminder of how critical it is that creators receive compensation for their work. (Scowls in the general direction of AI companies that rip off writers.)

Access Copyright is another great Canadian program that ensures writers and publishers are compensated for their work being copied.

How it works

Access Copyright negotiates blanket licences with institutions that typically make copies of books, poems, articles, etc. to allow for such copying in return for compensation which it then distributes to writers and publishers.

Experience has proven that without such licences creators rarely get paid for use of their work, as those doing the copying don’t usually go through the effort of tracking down the rights holders and asking permission to copy, let alone offering compensation.

Why it matters

Canadian publishing is chronically underfunded and most publishers survive season to season. Canadian writers fare no better, with most authors earning low advances and having to cobble together an existence of different income streams.

The Canadian bookselling marketplace has largely been colonized by American culture over the past few decades, and it’s commonly estimated that Canadian authors only account for around 5% of Canadian book sales. In an environment like this, every bit of income matters to struggling creators.

The simple math of the situation is that if creators aren’t paid for their work, they’ll need to find other work to survive and that means they’ll be creating less. Each dollar invested in their support is a dollar invested in a new creation.

Access Copyright licences also protect the institutions behind the copying from infringement. There’s little danger of them being sued if they’re paying for the right to copy, and those doing the copying can do so knowing it’s legal and ethical.

Thanks

All of this is to say many thanks to Access Copyright and the people that keep it running for all they do to protect and support Canadian culture!

Books to read when the veil is thin

I’m thrilled to see my new Cross book, The Wonder Lands War, is included on the Books to Read When the Veil Is Thin list at 49th Shelf! Some truly spooky company!

The Wonder Lands War is a spooky must-read!

I’m thrilled to have my new Cross book, The Wonder Lands War, included in this list of “9 Spooky Must-Read Books by Canadian Authors.” Watch for The Wonder Lands War soon!

The Write Life: How’s your focus?

You have an idea for your new book or story, you’ve figured out the genre, you’ve created an outline, you’re sitting at your desk ready to go… now what?

Maybe make some coffee and respond to those emails so your mind is clear before you start typing? Or take one last scan of the news so you know whether your new work is completely out of touch or not? Or clean your home? Or or or….

Before you actually start writing, you need to create an environment where you can focus on the writing and nothing else. Actually, you’re going to need to create a few environments.

First, protect your physical space from distractions. Lock yourself in a room alone if you are able. Put a “do not disturb” or “ask someone else” sign on the door. I know a writer who puts a sign on her office door that simply says “no.” Close the blinds if the world outside is too distracting. Turn music off or on for the same reasons. Block time on your calendars so no one interrupts you. In short, make sure there is nothing in your physical world pulling you away from your writing world.

Next, find ways to prevent digital distractions. They are particularly challenging as most apps and services are designed to compete for your attention so you check in multiple times a day. This constant stimulation is kryptonite for your focus. Turn on your devices’ Do Not Disturb options and use website blockers if you can’t resist temptation. (No judgement – we’ve all been there.) Some writers I know only write on devices not connected to the Internet to manage this. Others use different methodologies such as the Pomodoro technique, where you use a timer to write for 25 minutes, take a short break, then write for another 25 minutes. There are lots of apps out there that will help break your addiction to other apps in this way.

Embrace digital minimalism. Audit your apps regularly and remove everything that doesn’t serve your goals and distracts you from writing. Too often we end up serving the apps rather than the other way around, so it’s good to check in on your relationships with your apps from time to time. Cal Newport has a pretty good book on this called Digital Minimalism that every writer should read.

Now that you’ve removed distractions as much as possible, try to write at the same time every day for the same amount of time. Write in the same place if that works for you, or change it up if you’re more the type that needs a bit of variety. A habit like this will reinforce itself over time and gradually become unconscious.

All of these actions are designed to get you into the flow state, where the writing just happens. It does take work and structure, though. Like meditation, this clarity of mind doesn’t come naturally but requires a lot of practice.

Save the “shallow work” for the end of the day or for scheduled breaks. (Cal Newport identifies a useful distinction between deep work such as writing and shallow work such as responding to emails, paying bills, etc. Check out his book Deep Work for more on this.)

End the workday with something that allows you to easily slip back into focus state the next day. For instance, end halfway through a chapter where you are excited to write the next scene. This will make it easier to sit down and start writing again.

Your focus is like a muscle. The more you regularly train it, the stronger it will get.

Now stop reading this and get back to writing.

Related

The Write Life: You need a second brainThe Write Life: Make your desk a happy spaceThe Write Life: You can’t do it aloneThe Write Life: Support your communityThe Write Life: Plotting or pantsing?

The Wonder Lands War cover reveal

Coming in October: The Wonder Lands War, the fourth book in the Cross series of supernatural thrillers. Cross’s search for the real Alice of the Wonderland tales takes him through a world of secret books, hidden libraries, dangerous cemeteries — and to the Wonder Lands, a dangerous and decaying faerie realm.

Along the way Cross encounters magical librarians, scheming angels, immortal priests and more. All of your favourite characters are back: Cross, Morgana and the faerie court, the undead Amelia, Mona Lisa and Judas — and, of course, Alice.

The Wonder Lands War is a tale of loss and mourning yet also a love letter to literature and the sanctuary it provides, even in the darkest times.

The Write Life: Plotting or Pantsing?

A question I often get asked in interviews is whether I’m a plotter or a pantser. That is, do I outline a book or story in advance or do I make it up as I go?

My answer is yes.

I used to be a pantser when I first began writing, but I’ve become more of a plotter with each book I publish. When you’re working with more complex stories, it’s easy to write yourself into a corner when you’re pantsing it. Plotting ahead of time can stop you from going down some of those dead ends. Plus, if you’re writing books in a series, such as my Cross supernatural thrillers, then you really have to think about structure and how to fit the tale into a particular fictional universe. Your future self will thank you if you take the time to figure things out now rather than just wing it.

Plotting is particularly important for mapping out the emotional storylines of a work — knowing where to direct emotional beats, where to insert your turns and your action moments. If the book doesn’t have an emotional rhythm, its characters and their world can easily become emotionally adrift. And we have enough emotionally adrift people in the world!

That said, you don’t want to plot too much. I find that if you work out every little detail in advance, you leave yourself no room for creativity and you will likely lose interest in the project before completing it. Much of the magic of writing is from those moments where the characters lead you away from your story and to their story instead. Note that this is also where much of the frustration happens in writing.

I recommend creating an outline that has your physical plot (where the characters go, what action takes place) combined with an emotional plot (the moments where the characters’ worlds are turned upside down, the dark nights of the soul).

A good plotter will also think about the side plots for secondary characters, as it’s a more engaging tale when they have a developed life as well. Often when you start working out their stories, you’ll find ways they change the main story. Everyone gets a narrative arc!

Plotting can give a writer a road map when writing but hopefully also leave some room for creative detours. And always remember that a roadblock during the writing process can just be an excuse to go back and update that road map.

There are many different recommended models out there for plotters. I suggest trying them all to become familiar with them and then adapting what works for you and your style. For instance I’ve done workshops on Save the Cat, the Hero’s Journey and the Heroine’s Journey, to name a few. I don’t follow their models religiously — who follows anything religiously in the 21st century? — but I do incorporate elements from each in my own writing. Hopefully it’s all made me a better writer.

Full disclosure: I totally pantsed this post.

World Suicide Prevention Day: You can change your normal

One of the best ways of preventing suicides may be by talking about just how many people have suicidal thoughts. The older I get, the more people I encounter who have struggled with suicidal ideation at one point or another. Some are in their youth and can’t see a life path for themselves, some are mid-life people grappling with too many responsibilities, others are nearing or in old age and are just fed up with life. It’s incredibly common.

So full disclosure: I’ve been one of those people at various times in my life.

When I was young, I constantly battled with suicidal tendencies and came close to ending things on a few occasions. I more or less lived in a constant state of depression and thought that there was just something chemically wrong with me. It often seemed like suicide was an easier choice than simply existing.

Things really reached their crisis point around the time I started university. I availed myself of the free counselling at the University of Western Ontario and it genuinely saved my life. The counsellor helped me to understand I wasn’t chemically imbalanced but that there were things going on in my environment that had contributed to my mindset. She helped me learn different ways of thinking and how to escape negative mental cycles. I’ll be forever grateful for that intervention.

A significant reason I persisted was because of family. I couldn’t abandon people I was responsible for, whose lives I might irrevocably damage through such an act. Of course, responsibility leads to its own stresses. Enough stresses without an outlet or relief and eventually it will all catch up to you.

That’s where the other reason comes in: my dream of becoming a writer. I didn’t want to leave this world until I had realized my dreams of publishing a few stories and maybe even a book one day. And now here I am. Thanks to all of you who have supported me in my writing career over the years. I am still here in large part to you.

I’ve gone to counselling often throughout my life, and I’ve almost always found it helpful to learn tools to cope with suicidal thoughts and other mental challenges. Hello, anxiety! The basic lesson has been more or less the same with each one: You can change your normal. The tools have varied — stoicism, mindfulness, gratitude, meditation, exercise, friendships — but they have always been about changing my mental state from a negative one to a perspective that sees the good in the world and in my life.

I still have suicidal thoughts from time to time even now, but they are very minor and increasingly rare. They’re more of a reflex left over from my youth than a serious consideration. And I have the tools to deal with them now, and the gratitude for all the good things that have happened in my life. So now my suicidal impulses tend to go something along these lines: “This situation is terrible and I can’t bear it. I should just… nah, this will pass as it always does. Those hard moments have made me what I am today and I’ve always been grateful for them afterward. This will be the same. Now let’s work on getting through this to all the great moments that are going to come next!”

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, make sure you reach out for whatever help is available: counsellors, family, friends, help lines, colleagues, whatever.

Remember, you are loved. And you can change your normal.

Meditations and menace: The August 2025 Bibliofiles

My reading this month covered it all, from meditations on how to improve your mental state to terrifying tales of meaningless existence. Which pretty much sums up the time we’re living in, I suppose.

Fiction

Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

Meditations for Mortals is Oliver Burkeman’s follow-up to the powerful book Four Thousand Weeks and is just as life-changing as that modern classic.

Meditations is structured as a four-week mental retreat with daily instalments on such topics as healthy productivity, scruffy hospitality and self-compassion. Like Four Thousand Weeks, its core lessons are about being really present in the moment and reconceptualizing our anxious relationship with productivity and other 21st century demands. Burkeman offers ways to rethink everything from our plans for perfect futures to the to-do lists that dominate so much of our present. One of my favourite takeaways from Meditations is his suggestion to reimagine to-do lists as streams to dip into rather than buckets to empty.

If you’re constantly struggling with anxiety and burnout, then Meditations for Mortals may be the read you need at this moment in your life.

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/205363955-meditations-for-mortals

Carter and Lovecraft by Jonathan Howard

Police officer Daniel Carter retires and becomes a private investigator after a strange and horrific case that results in the suicide of his partner. But his life is turned inside out again when he inherits a bookstore run by Emily Lovecraft, a descendant of HP Lovecraft — yes, that HP Lovecraft.

Things take an even weirder turn when a series of impossible murders take place, and Carter and Lovecraft are drawn into a mystery that rewrites everything we know about our universe and hints that HP Lovecraft wasn’t writing fiction after all.

It’s a dark and eerie new series from Howard, the author of the Johannes Cabal the Necromancer series. But while the Cabal series is blackly comic, Carter and Lovecraft is blackly noir and infinitely more terrifying.

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23848134-carter-lovecraft

If Wishes Were Retail by Auston Habershaw

If Wishes Were Retail is the charming tale of Alex, a teen who can’t find any other job but working for a genie who has opened a mall kiosk selling wishes to mall-goers. The genie has little understanding of this world and is constantly offended by it, so he requires Alex to act as his guide. Alex hardly has it all together, though, as she is from a dysfunctional and disintegrating family and just wants to get the hell out of town and off to university and a new life. Of course, it’s never that easy when families — or genies — are involved.

If Wishes Were Retail is surprisingly complex under its surface world of laughs and ridiculous situations. There’s a whole subplot involving gnomes that touches on capitalist exploitation and the precariousness of work, as well as the main story’s exploration of family dynamics and community. To say that the genie changes everyone’s lives — including his own — would be an understatement.

I wish there were more books like this!

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/217535769-if-wishes-were-retail

The Hammer by KJ Parker

Like most KJ Parker works, The Hammer is a dark and witty tale grounded in logistics, engineering, manipulation and clever plots with long payoffs. It follows Gignomai of the met’Oc clan, an exiled noble family living in a distant colony where they are separated from the other colonists by a history of violence. Both groups are also wary of the natives who live farther inland, who appear to believe the colonists aren’t real — until they do and things get ugly.

Gignomai acts as a sort of hub for all the different groups when he exiles himself into the wilderness to build a factory that will allow the colony to gain independence from the homeland. It all seems very rational and simple, but life rarely works out way.

The Hammer is darker than Parker’s other works and takes the reader to an inevitable and horrifying outcome, where Gignomai’s actions turn out to be motivated by vengeance and the world of the colonists and natives alike is forever changed.

The Hammer probably isn’t for everyone. But if you like your fantasy grim, clever and merciless, this may be the read for you.

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8241571-the-hammer

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Silvia Moreno-Garcia impossibly keeps getting better as a writer with each book — which bodes well for readers given she seems to write a book a year. The Bewitching is one of her finest yet — a slow burn of story that combines a multigenerational saga with dark academia infused with witchcraft, folklore, class struggles and even a bit of Lovecraft.

The story is told from three points of view across different ages — Alba, a young woman in 1908 rural Mexico; Beatrice, a graduate student in 1930s New England; and Minerva, a graduate student and dorm warden in the present. Minerva is studying the writing of Beatrice, who wrote a novel about the disappearance of her roommate. The stories of all three become intertwined with a supernatural threat that reaches across the generations.

It’s another masterpiece from Moreno-Garcia that will leave you awake at night — partially because you want more but mostly because you’re keeping an eye on the shadows.

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220458657-the-bewitching

Non-fiction

Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s New Gothic Novel Is Bewitched, Bothered, and Emboldened

“My great-grandmother told me a story about how her uncle went missing and he was taken away by witches. That was one of the originating stories.

“She also told other stories about witches and what they did and how dangerous they were, how to defend yourself from witches, that sort of stuff.

“Then I went and I looked at some of the folk studies that have been done around witches in different parts of Mexico. I was comparing the knowledge that I had, my own personal family knowledge, to folk tales that I know and seeing how they mapped out. They map out really well—my great-grandmother could have been a folklorist.”

Goodreads interviews Silvia Moreno-Garcia about her new novel, The Bewitching.

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/interviews/show/1595.Silvia_Moreno_Garcia

All you leave behind comes with you: On travel, nostalgia and reading Calvino by Thomas Wharton

Thomas Wharton on why he takes a copy of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities with him whenever he travels.

Link: https://thomaswharton.substack.com/p/all-you-leave-behind-comes-with-you

“Be the creative spark that lights up the world”

I’m over at On Creative Writing talking about pantsing vs. plotting, the editing process and why everyone’s voice matters.

Bonus: There’s a preview of the cover for my new book out in October.

Lovable monsters: The July 2025 Bibliofiles

I recently moved homes in the suburbs of Vancouver, which left me wishing I could trade my body in for something better. This somehow got reflected in my reading choices this month, which were all lovable monsters and suburban nightmares. Or maybe it’s just the times….

Fiction

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell

How to describe Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell? Weird horror meets romantasy meets queer love coming of age story meets… well, you get the idea.

There’s a lot going on in the tale of Shesheshen, a shapeshifting monster (think gelatinous cube with bodily agency) who’s being hunted by a family of monster hunters and their minions. There’s a romantasy plot where Shesheshen falls in love with one of the humans but doesn’t quite know how to get around the part where she’s a monster that just wants to lay her eggs in someone. There’s a queer love story, complicated by the whole eggs business and a dash of asexuality. There’s a neurodivergence angle where Shesheshen desperately tries to make sense of the quirks of human society (think Murderbot or even Frankenstein’s creature). There’s enough trauma and abuse from parents to fill an entire YA series. Mix them all up and you have a fun and genuinely unique tale that will have you yearning for a sequel.

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/182506390-someone-you-can-build-a-nest-in

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik promises to be a reimagining of the Rumplestilskin myth, but it is so much more than that. Set in a vaguely eastern European land at the edge of woods where the mythical and murderous Staryk race dwell, the tale mainly follows three women: Miryem, the daughter of an inept moneylender; Wanda, a peasant girl from a sundered and violent family; and Irina, a noblewoman’s daughter who may hold the key to uniting several realms. It’s a cold, bitter world where treachery and death wait behind every tree and in every home, but these women are determined to rewrite the narratives that have already been foretold for their lives.

Spinning Silver has all the classic elements of a fairy tale — a love story with a brooding king, shapeshifting monsters, a land that is harsh and without mercy — retold for modern audiences. It’s a tale not just of fantastic creatures but also of unyielding defiance in the face of mundane oppression. It’s also a masterclass in storytelling, with its multiple POVs, interweaving narrative threads and deep knowledge of fairy tales and myth.

A word of caution, though: Spinning Silver is a dense and very layered book, so read it when you have the time to give it the attention it deserves.

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36896898-spinning-silver

Lost You Again by Ian Rogers

A creepy ghost story with a twist, and then another twist, and another. A truly haunting tale from one of Canada’s finest horror writers.

Link: https://www.thedarkmagazine.com/lost-you-again/

Employee of the Month by Alex Irvine

Government employees in a Michigan industrial park try to reconcile their suburban lives with their professional careers as interrogators and torturers. But the lines between the two become increasingly blurred and soon bodies start showing up in the wrong places.

Link: https://www.bourbonpenn.com/issue/36/employee-of-the-month-by-alex-irvine

Foreign Tongues by John Wiswell

An alien believes ice cream is the highest form of life on Earth and is determined to free it from its human wardens. Butterscotch mayhem ensues.

Link: https://www.flashfictiononline.com/article/foreign-tongues/

Non-fiction

What if Tom Bombadil had written The Lord of the Rings? by Thomas Wharton

“This was Middle-earth with nobody in it! No Men, no Ringwraiths, no Elves or Dwarves or Orcs, no conflicts or battles or rousing speeches or hobbity wisecracking or escapes in the nick of time. This was just nature. Growth, decay, wind and rain. The Sun rising and going down. The moon coming out. An eagle soaring in the sky. The rivers flowing and the trees swaying in the night. An eerie, wild strain of Illuvatar’s great music of creation.”

Thomas Wharton revisits Lord of the Rings with an eye toward the nature rather than the quest.

Link: https://thomaswharton.substack.com/p/what-if-tom-bombadil-had-written

Why You Can’t Finish Writing That Novel by Thomas Wharton

Are you a writer who needs an outline to figure out the tale before you’ve started? Or do you write to actually figure out the tale? I’m a little of both myself.

Link: https://thomaswharton.substack.com/p/why-you-cant-finish-writing-that

What good is making art at all when the world is on fire? by Paul Vermeersch

“Art makes nothing unthinkable.”

Link: https://theampersandreview.ca/new-page-82

It’s the Natural Thing to Do: A Conversation with Stuart Ross

A great interview with Canadian icon Stuart Ross (also one of my favourite writers!).

Link: https://theampersandreview.ca/new-page-26

Poetry

Turn of the Page by George Murray

If you want to feel old and wise (or maybe just old or wise), here’s a poem for you.

Link: https://www.badlilies.uk/george-murray