Peter Darbyshire's Blog, page 2
July 15, 2025
The Write Life: Support your community
Now more than ever it’s time to support your community. It’s become clear that without active support, many of the communities we love and see ourselves as belonging to may wither and fade away. This is especially important for writers and other creators, whose communities are tenuous at the best of times.
How best to support your writing community?
Read, read, read. Read widely and deeply — and make an effort to read those writers who aren’t constantly in the spotlight. There are many fine writers whose works get overlooked because they are with smaller publishers that can’t afford a lot of marketing or who simply aren’t interested in self-promotion or social media. Go to the websites of smaller publishers in your country or writing/reading niche and see who they are publishing. You’d be surprised at how many writers you find who have fallen off your radar but you actually want to read. This is especially true if you live outside of the U.S. because, let’s face it, American publishing tends to dominate the cultural conversation. Hey, some of my favourite writers are American but I like a bit of variety!
Tell writers you like or appreciate their work. I can’t tell you how many times this has mattered to me when I’ve felt like giving up on a project and lighting my computer on fire. A well-timed social media post or email can mean the difference between a writer finishing their next work or not. We tend to work in isolation, after all, and the feedback we get tends to be spaced at very long and irregular intervals. Much like royalty payments! I can’t speak for other writers, but a generous comment here and there has meant as much to me as a positive review somewhere. I’ve even made some lasting friendships out of people reaching out to me!
Speaking of reviews, share the love for your favourite books. As fewer books are being reviewed in the media, personal recommendations matter more than ever. A review doesn’t have to be a carefully crafted BookTok video. It can be a few lines on your review platform of choice, or a simple photo post on your preferred social media platform. Don’t forget to tag the author to make their day and help them share your post! (But for the love of all the gods, don’t tag authors in negative reviews. That is not helpful!)
If you can’t leave a review, please consider leaving a rating. For better or worse, we live in an algorithmic world and ratings matter to a writer’s career. Every rating you leave on Goodreads, Amazon, Indigo, wherever actually does make a small difference to getting an author shown to potential readers, and it takes very little time to click on a star.
For what it’s worth, I think star ratings for books and other cultural works is madness. They’re not blenders (although my books have been called genre blenders!). I just give everything I read and like five stars because it’s all a matter of personal taste anyway. It’s the best I can do until someone comes up with a better system. Like maybe the number of times parts of a book have been highlighted and bookmarked….
Subscribe to the magazines that publish writing you like. This is a really simple one. If people don’t subscribe, then those magazines will cease to publish and there won’t be writing you like. It’s the same as buying books. Without a supportive community, there is no culture.
Most magazines can be found on Patreon these days, which makes it pretty easy to subscribe to them, and digital subscriptions are usually quite affordable. As a bonus feature, many magazines offer specialized communities to their subscribers in the form of Discord groups. So you’re getting twice the community for the price of one subscription!
Get out in person to events if you can. Go to the writers’ festivals, the reading series, the book launches, the conventions, and so on. If there aren’t in your area, then consider starting some. Join a writing group and use it for more than writing. (My writing group mostly plays games these days.) The same goes for book clubs. We’re social and physical creatures, and nothing builds community like presence. Most of my best and enduring friendships have been because of real-world events like this.
Once again, read, read, read!
July 2, 2025
Play This: Sushi Go!
I like sushi every now and then but I only eat it three or four times a year. So I was skeptical that I would like a card game about creating sushi meals. But Sushi Go! has quickly become one of my favourite games.
The object of the game is simple: Make the best combination of sushi dishes from the cards in your hand. What’s the best combination? That’s where things get interesting.
There are many different dishes that can wind up in your hand, and players get different scores for different combos. Want to play it safe and collect maki? The player with the most maki gets 6 points, while the player with the second most gets 3 points. Everybody else gets food poisoning. Or you could be adventurous and try the sashimi — if you collect three sashimi cards you get 10 points. Anything less and you’re picking up the bill. Then there are wild cards of a sort. Wasabi triples the value of your next nigiri. Chopsticks allow you to get extra cards and so on.
The real fun part of the game is you don’t stick with the same hand all game. Each turn you select one card from your hand that effectively becomes your order. Then you lay down your card so everyone can see it and you pass your hand to the player on your left while receiving the cards of the player on your right. It’s like one of those sushi boat setups. You never know what’s coming to you, so figuring out what to collect is always a bit of a gamble. On the other hand, you can see what everyone else is trying to collect so you can try to come up with ways to make sure they don’t enjoy their meal.
The game usually proceeds quickly, lasting about around 20 minutes or so, with the winner being the player with the most points after three rounds. Almost everyone I know is always hungry for more and wants to play again.
The game art is beautiful and it comes in a lovely box as well if you get the party pack version with all the cards and a game board. I highly recommend that, as most people end up ordering it after playing the basic game anyway.
It’s a good pick for family games as well, as the rules are easy to pick up and kids generally seem to enjoy it.
Just remember to leave room for dessert! (Seriously. I keep losing games because I don’t think of dessert points.)
June 15, 2025
The Write Life: You can’t do it alone
Writers are probably the most antisocial people around. After all, our ideal state is to be locked alone in a room all day, trying to convince imaginary people to do what we want them to do. Most days we’d rather read about other imaginary people than leave our homes to meet real people. If you’re a writer, you’re probably nodding in agreement at this point.
There is nothing more important to writers than community, though. In fact, I think building or joining a community is where the writing starts. I never would have become a published author if not for the university writing group I joined, which for the first time introduced me to editorial feedback, other perspectives on writing, revisions and writing to deadline. That writing group became some of my closest friends, and those friendships persist today even though we are scattered across the continent. (I swear they’re not all trying to avoid me.)
The value of finding like-minded people cannot be overstated. Did I say value? More like critical need. Without such a network, you are in a void when you start out, and you will be writing into the void. A community gives you an audience, gives you affirmation that what you are doing is worthwhile and necessary, gives you a path of development.
Of course, not everyone can find a local community. And there’s something to be said for joining online communities even if you do have a writing group that meets in person. Your writing community can never be too large. Or perhaps you need more than one community to fill all your needs. I contain multitudes and all that.
I have a local community in my area that has helped a great deal with improving my writing over the last few years. Hell, I likely wouldn’t have written anything without them. I was going through a hard time in my personal life, and writing would have been the last thing on my mind if not for my community. As it turned out, that writing group was what kept me sane and motivated during some crazy times. If not for the accountability of writing to hit the group’s deadlines, collaborating in some writing sprints, etc., I don’t know what would have happened.
We’ve mostly moved the group online to a dedicated Discord server but still meet in person once a month for games nights. And I’ve joined other groups to meet the needs they can’t fulfill — a different writing group for other projects, Codex and SFWA for writing and market chats, and a few private Patreon groups linked to magazines. All those communities help keep me immersed in a culture of inspiration and creation, which is half the battle right there when it comes to writing. And most of the battle when it comes to procrastination.
So what makes for a good community?
Make sure you find or create a community that actually helps you contribute to your development. That development can be different things at different stages of your life. It could simply be having readers and deadlines for accountability to keep you writing, or it could be beta readers to help polish your book for publication, or it could be agents who can connect you with markets. It could just be a group of writers talking different theories of writing. My writing group spent time studying Save the Cat, the hero’s journey and the heroine’s journey, and various Masterclasses.
Whatever it is that you need to become a better writer, you’ll find that a writing community will better help you achieve your goals. And hopefully keep you sane in the process! Well, as sane as a writer can be….
May 20, 2025
May 15, 2025
The Write Life: Make your desk a happy space
Some time ago I was struggling to get any writing done and didn’t know how to get past it. My publishing career wasn’t going well, I had a number of personal issues that were disrupting my focus and writing felt like work rather than the thing that brought me joy. I was basically avoiding my desk because it wasn’t a happy space. The situation was unsustainable and I knew I had to rethink what I was doing. In short, I felt like almost every other writer.
I took a break to just read for a while, as one does in such moments, as reading may be the only acceptable form of procrastination. I happened to reread Atomic Habits by James Clear, and his thoughts on the importance of well-running systems suddenly resonated with me. Clear says goals are great for creating direction but ultimately unachievable if you don’t also have a good system for making progress. Every writer I know will see the wisdom in this.
“When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy,” Clear says. “You can be satisfied anytime your system is running. And a system can be successful in many different forms, not just the one you first envision.”
I realized what I was lacking was a happiness system for my writing, which meant I wasn’t really able to achieve any of my goals because I couldn’t stick to the process properly. So I set about to change that, starting with my desk. The desk in my office was where I had been doing everything — my work for my day job, paying my bills, doomscrolling, checking my email and my writing. So it was a place of constantly conflicted feelings, with endless distractions to my focus. I decided to make it purely a creative space dedicated to my writing. Archaic perhaps, like buying a record player to listen to music, but sometimes there’s value in returning to the old ways. (Although I draw the line at chicken pox parties.)
First, I moved everything not related to my writing out of my office. I now do the work for my day job in a separate room, I keep up with the news on my phone rather than my writing computer, I don’t bother paying bills anymore, and so on.
Once I had cleared my desk of work, I redecorated it with things that made me happy to look at. I’ve long been a Dungeons & Dragons enthusiast (I’m a writer, remember?), so I framed some D&D postcards and put them on my desk. Just looking at them puts me in a good mood. I added a model of a Tintin rocket because Explorers on the Moon sparked my imagination as a child and I’ve never really grown up. My coffee mug coaster is a map from Lord of the Rings. My ReLit Award ring is always handy as a pick-me-up when I’m feeling down. I’m adding little things here and there that spark joy.
Now when I sit at my desk, I’m automatically put into a happy mood by the items on it. That makes me more willing to spend time at my desk, and the more time I spend there the more writing I get done. Sure, everyone else complains I’ve become a hermit — but I’m a happy, productive hermit!
So one of my most important pieces of advice to other writers is to create a happiness system — and start with a happy desk.
April 30, 2025
The Butcher of Tariffs – The April 2025 Bibliofiles
We just had a rather significant election in Canada, so I’ve been reading a bit more about tariffs and publishing woes. But I did also manage to find time to read Robert Jackson Bennett’s second book in the Din and Ana series, which takes things to a new level of creepy yet beautiful horror — which also applies to Premee Mohamed’s Butcher of the Forest. I also read KJ Aiello’s The Monster in the Mirror, which looks at the construction of mental illness in fantasy and science fiction — timely given our Instagram Live together!
I hope you check out some of these reads and enjoy them as much as I did.
Fiction
The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed
Veris is a survivor. She’s managed to keep herself alive under the rule of the merciless Tyrant, who has taken over her land and killed many of its residents. She’s also the only one to have entered the mysterious forest known as the Elmever and come back out alive. But when the Tyrant’s children go missing in the Elmever, he turns to Veris to rescue them. It’s certain death to go into those woods a second time. But it’s also certain death to fail the Tyrant. So Veris has no choice but to venture into the Elmever once more in search of the children.
The Butcher of the Forest is an eerie story that captures the spirit of fairy tales but leaves behind all the trappings meant for children. It’s as if the Brothers Grimm met up with Alice in Wonderland in a cosmic horror story. Haunting, weird and beautiful.
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127281143-the-butcher-of-the-forest
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
The charming detective pair of Din and Ana are back to solve a new mystery in A Drop of Corruption, the second in one of the best fantasy series I’ve read in ages. Din is an engraver, a sort of enhanced human who has the ability to memorize pretty much anything. He’s the field agent for Ana, a Holmes-like detective who is as brilliant as she is eccentric. Together they are sent to Yarrowdale, a kingdom on the edge of the empire where fallen Titans are dismantled for the magical blood that helps to power the empire. An officer of the empire has disappeared into thin air and only Ana and Din can solve the mystery. But things quickly grow complicated when they realize the disappearance is related to a string of murders, and the killer is a mad genius who moves between the kingdom and the wild lands at its borders, spreading a strange sort of contagion that threatens everything.
A Drop of Corruption is a riveting followup to the first book in the series, A Tainted Cup. It’s the sleuthing mysteries of Sherlock Holmes meeting the biohorror and weirdness of Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation, with the political intrigue that Bennett is known for. I can’t wait to read the next book!
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/213618143-a-drop-of-corruption
Idle, Inc. by Benjamin Parzybok
A customer support representative at a tech startup that sells free time to people discovers exactly where that time comes from and at what cost. Another delightfully bizarre story from Bourbon Penn.
Link: https://www.bourbonpenn.com/issue/35/idle-inc-by-benjamin-parzybok
Labbatu Takes Command of the Flagship Heaven Dwells Within by Arkday Martine
Sci-fi space pirate smut!
Link: https://www.sundaymorningtransport.com/p/labbatu-takes-command-of-the-flagship
Non-fiction
Values by Mark Carney
Wherever you stand on Canadian politics, it’s probably worth reading Value(s) by Canadian prime minister Mark Carney, who was also a former governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada. It’s an informative history of how we have determined value and shaped financial systems over the ages, with a disquieting move from market economies to market societies. Carney suggests we need to realign our values so they’re not just about financial worth and profitability. It’s hard to argue against that in the age of Trump and tariffs.
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54503528-value-s
The Monster and the Mirror by KJ Aiello
Part memoir, part analysis of mental illness in the fantasy genre, The Monster and the Mirror is a unique and powerful book that defies categorization. It’s also a necessary call for us to reimagine how we approach mental illness, from the health care system to the media in all its forms. A timely and important read.
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/211765623-the-monster-and-the-mirror
Bookish and World Woes by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Silvia Moreno-Garcia reflects on the Canada-U.S. tensions and how things will likely be dire this coming year and beyond for writers, publishers and bookstores. This really is a time for everyone to support their communities.
Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bookish-and-woes-124982811
The Science of Romance: Young, in Love, and Enthralled by Biochem by Kristi Charish
Kristi Charish writes about living beside wetlands, which means every spring she witnesses a practical orgy among wildlife and teenagers. It’s sexy material for another column about the science of writing and how to use real-world science to flesh out your tales.
Could Tariffs Collapse Canadian Publishing? by Wolsak and Wynn
Most of the books sold in Canada come from the U.S. The multinationals that dominate Canadian publishing spend fortunes on marketing campaigns that independent Canadian publishers cannot compete with, which tilts demand toward U.S. books. So what’s to be done? Support those indie presses that are genuinely Canadian.
Link: https://www.wolsakandwynn.ca/blog/2025/03/27/could-tariffs-collapse-canadian-publishing
The America I Loved Is Gone by Stephen Marche
“Canada is a country that disillusions you. America is one illusion after another, some magnificent, others treacherous or vicious.”
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/20/american-dream-trump-canada
April 25, 2025
The angel gunslinger will Azrael will ride again!
I’m absolutely delighted to announce I’ve written a new tale of Azrael the angel gunslinger — and Beneath Ceaseless Skies will be publishing it! More details to come. In the meantime, here are the previously published Azrael stories:
The Angel Azrael Rode Into the Town of Burnt Church on a Dead Horse – The angel Azrael rides into the town of Burnt Church for a drink and ends up helping the very strange inhabitants fight off a gang of demons that’s been tormenting them.The Angel Azrael Delivers Small Mercies – The angel Azrael encounters an angel who is determined to turn the world into her own personal Hell and only Azrael can stop her.The audio version of “The Angel Azrael Delivers Small Mercies” with a new introduction I recorded for the storyThe Angel Azrael Delivers Justice to the People of the Dust – The angel Azrael rides into a mining town that is under siege from curious bone creatures stealing the town’s children. When Azrael intervenes, he discovers that nothing is what it seems in this strange place.The Angel Azrael Encounters the Revelation Pilgrims and Other Curiosities – The angel Azrael is hired by a group of pilgrims to guide them through a dangerous stretch of land, where they encounter a city of the dead and an outlaw band of half angels intent on ensuring they don’t make it to their destination.The Angel Azrael and the War Ghosts – The angel Azrael tries to stop a group of ghostly soldiers from preying upon travellers and rides straight into his own troubled past.The Angel Azrael Battles a Dead God Among the Heretics – The angel Azrael encounters a village full of crazed golems intent upon resurrecting a dead god to unleash upon the world — a god that Azrael has already killed once.The Angel Azrael and the Dead Man’s Hand – The Angel Azrael wanders into a strange town and becomes trapped in a supernatural and deadly card game. A recommended read by Locus!April 21, 2025
Instagram Live with KJ Aiello
I’m looking forward to doing an Instagram Live with KJ Aiello April 23 (7:30 ET / 4:30 PT). Aiello is the author of The Monster and the Mirror and a lively Instagram influencer, so this should be fun! Follow along on her Instagram channel.
April 15, 2025
The Write Life: You need a second brain
If there’s one thing every writer needs, it’s a second brain.
No, I don’t mean a brain in a jar — although I’m sure there are some writers out there who have just such a thing decorating their office. Hey, no judgement from me.
I mean an external system for collecting and organizing all the information in your life — in other words, the things your real brain isn’t that great at remembering. Like editor’s notes and deadlines. In the past maybe that was post-it notes decorating every inch of the walls of your writing space like some mad person arguing with imaginary people — aka a writer. Or perhaps it was something more sane, like a commonplace book. These days, for better or worse, it tends to be an app.
Why do you need a second brain when the whole point of writing is to create something out of your imagination? Because it’s nearly impossible to keep track of every idea and element that goes into creating a written work without it. How many scribbled notes to yourself have you forgotten in a pocket or lost on transit, to be found by some other aspiring writer who will then turn it into a bestseller? How many inspiring articles have you emailed to yourself only to lose them somewhere in the depths of your inbox, where a Lovecraftian AI is slowly using them to achieve sentience? How many times have you forgotten what happens next in the outline of your story when those imaginary people refuse to do what you tell them? Our real brains are great at processing information — oh no, here comes a horde of zombies! — but not so good at retaining it. Cue the second brain.
Thankfully, there are a number of apps out there that are of immense value to writers and other people with more productive lives. I use Notion to create mini-wikis for my writing projects where I collect ideas, outlines, character profiles, settings, general notes, divine/infernal visions and so on. I also use it to organize my reading lists and keep track of my publications — published, pending, in progress, weird monstrosities, etc. Notion has a very simple and clean interface but is infinitely customizable once you get the hang of it, which I am sure to do one day. Other writers use Ulysses or Scrivener, while more generalist apps such as Evernote, Asana and Obsidian can also serve well as second brains (although they lack the literary names of the others I mentioned).
It doesn’t matter what system you use as long as you develop a second brain to help keep yourself organized. Your real brain will thank you once it realizes it no longer has to futilely attempt to keep track of things and can now focus on creating. And procrastinating.
And yes, I originally created this post in my second brain.
March 30, 2025
Weird Blood – The March 2025 Bibliofiles
My reading has been a little weird this month — weird westerns, weird SF, weird horror and so on. But hey, it’s a weird time!
Fiction
Blood Rush by Ben Galley
A young Merion Hark is sent to the wild west to live with a mysterious aunt after his father, Prime Lord Hark, is found murdered. Used to a life of luxury and power, Merion is out of his element in the rugged town of Fell Falls, where the railway is being expanded into the territory of those who don’t want it there and strange railwraiths terrorize everyone.
But Merion is not alone. A faerie warrior named Rhin has accompanied him to this new land and watches over him. But Rhin has secrets of his own that follow him to the new world and threaten to unleash chaos upon everyone.
In fact, everyone has secrets in Fell Falls, including Merion’s aunt, who collects the blood of different creatures, and her companion Lurker, who drinks blood to give him mystical powers.
But perhaps no one’s secret is greater than Merion’s, for it turns out he, too, has the ability to gain power from blood, but he is so much more powerful than Lurker or any others. So powerful, in fact, he draws the wrong sort of attenion.
A great start to a very weird west series!
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/23956571-bloodrush
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
Breq, the ancillary that is all that is left of the ship Justice of Toren, is given command of a new ship by the emperor (or one of the emperors anyway, as it’s more or less a bunch of clones) and travels to the distant Athoek Station. The mission puts her in the middle of intrigue, as the station is near a strange Ghost Gate that periodically spits out strange artifacts and is watched over by a military ship that is clearly hiding something, while there’s also an ambassador of the alien Presger aboard the station.
The mission also puts Breq in contact with the family of a soldier she once knew — a soldier that Breq herself killed. Somehow, all of these stories become intertwined, along with a storyline about the a plantation planet and the exploitation of its workers. This isn’t a blasters and battle stations space opera — it’s a political mystery steeped in class struggle. It’s more Jane Austen and Downtown Abbey than Star Wars or the Expanse. It’s an interesting flavour but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20706284-ancillary-sword
10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days by Samantha Mills
“There is a future where a hellgate opens off the coast of California.”
Things get weird and worse after that. An unfortunately timely tale.
Link: https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/10-visions-of-the-future-or-self-care-for-the-end-of-days/
The Vermillion Guestbook by Andrew Zhou
A front desk clerk at an apocalyptic hotel where time makes little sense records notes about ever stranger guests and reveals secrets about his own past. It’s equal parts black comedy, weird SF and tragic romance.
Link: https://www.bourbonpenn.com/issue/35/the-vermillion-guestbook-aug-13-1998-by-andrew-zhou
Non-fiction
Transcendence in Horror by Simon Strantzas
“Horror is, of course, about how all love will end, how all lovers will die, how all plans will fail, how nothing will survive; but it can also be about how we deal with adversity and our fears and pains and not just persevere but how we can rise above them and be changed by them.”
Can horror be positive?
Link: https://www.weirdhorrormagazine.com/on-horror-10
Twenty-one Ifs by Thomas Wharton
If your inner voice could have a celebrity cameo for a day, who would you choose to narrate your thoughts? Werner Herzog? Margot Kidder? James Earl Jones? How might this guest voice change your behaviour and decisions?
If your anxieties had a customer service phone line, what would be their “please hold” music?
If every ordinary object had a hidden purpose completely unrelated to its usual function, what would be the most mind-boggling hidden purpose you could imagine for your toothbrush? Your favourite hat? That cracked slab of sidewalk down the street from your place?
If you could live inside a painting or work of art for a day, which painting or artwork would it be?
And so on.
Link: https://substack.com/home/post/p-158612818
A Weak and Misshapen Industry by Kenneth Whyte
Do Canadian publishers need to be more like U.S. and U.K. publishers? I think the emphasis on every cultural field turning more commercial is deeply misguided, but there are some interesting points here nevertheless — especially about how publishers embracing niches.
Link: https://shush.substack.com/p/a-weak-and-misshapen-industry
The Science of Fantasy: Respecting the Ecosystem by Kristi Charish
A great new column by Kristi Charish, author and science PhD, on what fantasy creatures would really be like in real life. First up, the charming fairy — which would likely be much less charming in reality!
Link: https://www.kristicharish.com/news/2025/3/8/the-science-of-fantasy-respecting-the-ecosystem
