Reddit reviews Across the Universe

>Where and when did you decide to become a novelist?

I have always loved writing. I have pictures of myself in first grade with my first "story" (about three sentences that told the story of the characters on my coloring sheet. For Career Day, I dressed as a secretary and carried around a typewriter because I didn't know you could have a career as author and I just wanted to do something where I typed. Everyone told me I needed a "day job" to be a writer--and they were right, I did need an income that was more regular until I could make it.

>Did you go to school to achieve your current status or did you take a different path?

No schooling. I took one creative writing class in college, and my professor--the head of the CW department--said on the first day that we could write anything for his class except sci fi and fantasy because he didn't want stories where you could wave a magic wand and everything's fine. Which is utterly stupid, because SFF isn't about that at all. I stuck it through that one class, and was so disillusioned by the elitism and snobbery of the literary wannabes that I noped out of there. Instead, I got my degree in English education, and worked as a high school teacher for six years before I could break through in publishing. I wrote ten novels over the course of a decade, submitted them all, and racked up about a thousand rejections from agents and publishers. It was basically like working a second job. My big breakthrough came with my first published novel, Across the Universe, which enabled me to quit my job and turn writing into my career.

>What is your advice for aspiring writers?

When given the choice between staying at home and writing all day or going out and having an adventure, choose the adventure. A life lived well and diversely will give you more and better stories than a life lived holed up. Of course there's a time when you need to put your butt in the chair and work, but don't do it at the expense of living.

Also, find your community. Writing is very solitary, but the writing community isn't. Reach out to other writers on your level, in your genre, etc. If you write YA, /r/YAWriters is a great resource (disclosure, I'm a mod there, but we are pretty awesome).

>And how does one become a writer for Lucasfilm?

Luck. They came to my agent and asked if I'd be interested and I tried not to freak out when she passed the offer to me.

The YA sci-fi books I've read recently have spread out in several directions, not just the space opera type. All published and read recently:

• Across the Universe series by Beth Revis
  
• Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis, which was kind of a sci-fi/fantasy mashup, though closer to real-world portals.
  
• Incarceron by Catherine Fisher. Sci-fi/fantasy mashup also, but more steampunk than anything else.
  
• Legend trilogy by Marie Lu, closer to the Hunger Games dystopian feel
  
• Adaptation by Malinda Lo, set in 2015, I think? Not far in the future.
  
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, another near-future dystopia with fairly modern tech
  
• Tin Star by Cecil Castellucci, which was totally Titan A.E. + religious cults
  
  You could possibly jam books like Matched and Delirium under the sci-fi label, but they didn't go into the tech much.

Across the Universe.

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00475ARSO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

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The Tardis makes me really happy. I also really love fleece blankets. I ain't birthed no babies!

Also. [Happy Birfday.] (http://www.amazon.com/Across-the-Universe-ebook/dp/B00475ARSO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1376882087&sr=1-1&keywords=across+the+universe) I'm reading the third in the series right now and they're awesome. The website is also really bad ass.

Congrats on being an Aunt! I like the name, it's pretty. Have a great birthday!

Some YA dystopias that haven't been mentioned:

• Feed, where everyone has the internet in their heads from birth. On a trip to the moon, boy meets girl who didn't get it until age 6.
  
• Uglies series, where the perfect society will give you massive plastic surgery to make you pretty and dumb on your 16th birthday.
  
• Delirium trilogy, in a totalitarian society where love is a disease and everyone is "cured" at 16 and given a partner.
  
• Matched trilogy, in a totalitarian society where there is no love and everyone is given a partner at 17. Yes, it's the same book as Delirium. Delirium has better writing; Matched is easier to read.
  
• The Selection trilogy, where America has become a monarchy filled with castes and there is a televised event to choose the next princess.
  
• Leviathan trilogy, a steampunk retelling of WWI where the Austro-Hungarians use mechas and the British use genetically-engineered whale blimps.
  
• Legend trilogy, which starts off as a cat-and-mouse chase between a 15-year old government super-agent and a 15-year old terrorist in future Los Angeles.
  
• Boneshaker, about steampunk, blimps, and zombies in frontier Oregon. Has incredibly wooden characters.
  
• Across the Universe trilogy, where a girl is being shipped to a space colony with her parents, but is unfrozen early and stuck in the midst of a murder mystery and an unrecognizable spaceship society.
  
  By the way, Little Brother is a free ebook.