J.R. Johnson

David Farland put out a nice piece last week titled Be Excited, and (unsurprisingly:) that pretty much sums up his thesis. Essentially, he says that the writers he sees who are the most productive are those able to get and stay excited about their work. That hit home for me, not just in terms of quantity, but also quality. I find that my best stories tend to be those I find most entertaining. Granted, I may be biased, but what’s more fun than… fun?

With that in mind, I recommend a short fiction from the September issue of Lightspeed.* Holly Black’s Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (the Successful Kind) is everything I love about a story: it’s funny, poignant, trying and triumphant. And fun.

* This story also appeared in the excellent Monstrous Affections anthology edited by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant, which I read on the strength of this piece.