Today I Learned

Meals became the one time of day […] to be together – and I met them with equal parts […] and dread. Would today be the day I engaged Allison […] stand up to Diego’s taunts? Maybe I’d show Five the violin piece I’d been working on for weeks.

Though prone to arrogance and outbursts, even more than the average preteen, Five was my sole confidante in the years before he disappeared. It almost seemed fitting […] the siblings to leave us, it would be him who [I fully?] […] who fully trusted me. Five was […] always one […] Dad’s manipulations, and he […]-ites like my other siblings. Five […] man’s most […]-ive weakness […] compen… […] beyond […]

One morning, I left the Academy […] with clothes, snacks, and mementos […] I think I even brought a dream catcher […] from home following me wherever I went […] a bus stop, and I sat there all day long – and strangers […] first time in my life it hit me that I was completely alone. I thought I was alone my entire life, but this was new and entirely different. I was afraid of what I [didn’t know?] and would choose Dad’s torment any day over the [endless dark that stretched?] down our street. [Buses came?] […] the kind drivers away. That night I walked back […] the front doors, and no one knew I had even left to the […]. I wonder how long it would have taken them to realize the extra girl they never needed was […] existence? To this day, I’m not sure. The next time that […] was when we all did. After what happened to Ben.

Our everyday existence was full of evidence that Dad had […]-pped into treating us like experiments. Not as children, but like animals. And what happened to Ben was the last straw that finally shattered the illusion for the others, I regret that […] among what they realized that day. I didn’t […] to leave on my own. It wasn’t until Allison took off for Hollywood and Diego cursed out the old man for good […] [realized?] we were ultimately a broken family. I […] that my family would accept me into the fold. I […] as long as there was a club to belong to, one day […] notice me and invited me too. Everyone would say “Vanya, we can’t believe we’ve wasted so much time without you, you’re our sister after all.”

But it was then that I realized […] there was nothing for me to aspire to be anymore. It was […] – the life that I had wanted for as long as I could remember […] had finally fallen apart: Without The Umbrella Academy […] and the freedom to be whomever I chose. Suddenly my violin playing wasn’t stupid – it was something that made me special.

I would say it was Dad who implemented all of this. He caused my alienation through procedures, through harsh rules that we all followed for fear of the alternative. And to an extent, that’s all true. I can’t forgive what he did to me – but sometimes I wonder where Dad’s actions ended and by siblings’ began. When you consider what a mind, especially a young mind, will absorb and harness when put into dire situations, it’s not at all difficult to believe that my siblings learned cruelty from Dad until they eventually made it their own. It wasn’t just the rules keeping me out of top-secret meetings, anymore. It just made sense that I would sit at the end of the table, so Diego could help Five’s technique, or so Allison could paint Klaus’s fingernails. I became accustomed to sulking and watching them from afar – […] my morning oatmeal went uneaten and but thoroughly […]

Highlights:

Five was Vanya’s closest sibling and the one person who treated her like an equal

Five is not an angry old man from his apocalypse time, he’s just like that

Vanya once tried to run away, and when she came back, nobody even noticed she was gone

Hargreeves treated them like lab rats (but we knew that)

Ben’s death changed everything

Diego cursed out Hargreeves (Go Diego Go!)

Allison painted Klaus’ fingernails as teens

Vanya just hates that goddamn oatmeal

I would love for them to publish Vanya’s book as a companion to the series. This tea is piping hot, and I wanna figure out which part made Ben say “Oh my god, she wrote that? I can’t believe she would do that!”

How To Stop Editing As You Go

What’s wrong with editing as you go?

Disclaimer, everyone has a different writing process, and that’s okay! But a lot of people never finish their novels because they don’t get through the first draft, and what’s the biggest killer of a first draft? Obsessing over your writing until you hate it.

But it’s right there! I want to edit it!

So take it away. I use a very simple method of having a working document and a master document. I write each chapter on the working document before moving it into the master. The master doc CANNOT be edited unless you need to add something in for the plot. This way, you remove the temptation to edit and you leave it alone. 

Okay, and when it comes to my second draft?

Then you duplicate the doc, keep the old crappy one, and edit the new one. This way you don’t edit the things you end up cutting, but if you cut something you want back, you still have the original copy. 

[if you repost to Instagram please tag @isabellestonebooks]

This is for all the writers who:

Have never finished a project

Don’t have publishing as their big goal

Write purely for enjoyment

Can’t/don’t stick to an idea

Don’t put their work out for people to read

Write purely as a hobby

You are just as valid and talented as writers who have been published, or have finished projects. You are still a writer, even if you don’t have other people read your work. You don’t have to pursue the same goals and have similar accomplishments to other people to be valid as a writer.

You are valid, you are important, and you are talented.

spiderman is so fucking funny dude saves like an entire country and then he goes home at the end of the day and opens his fridge and hes got like 1 egg and a half empty can of arizona tea no matter how old he is or what comic hes from thats just how peter parker lives

Y’all I think the Carmichael is cool but if I see ANYONE who wants to FUCK THE FISH I’m leaving this fandom and I ain’t looking back

Please, please, please don’t ever let yourself believe that you don’t matter or that the people in your life would be better off without you. You’re so much more loved, so much more valued than you know. Your existence matters and the people in your life are lucky to know you. Don’t forget that.

Writing advice from my uni teachers:

If your dialog feels flat, rewrite the scene pretending the characters cannot at any cost say exactly what they mean. No one says “I’m mad” but they can say it in 100 other ways.

Wrote a chapter but you dislike it? Rewrite it again from memory. That way you’re only remembering the main parts and can fill in extra details. My teacher who was a playwright literally writes every single script twice because of this.

Don’t overuse metaphors, or they lose their potency. Limit yourself.

Before you write your novel, write a page of anything from your characters POV so you can get their voice right. Do this for every main character introduced.

Why must my feelings be "rational"? Is it not enough to sit quietly in my hawaiian shirt, deranged?

YA literature? You mean books about Super Special White Girl and Her Mysterious Brooding Boyfriend?