Weekly Accountability Post

For Monday, July 5, 2026

This is the weekly post where we get on the accountability bandwagon and watch our productivity skyrocket. It’s simple. We use the most powerful tools in the creative shed: social pressure.

Reply in the comments and let us know what you got done this week. And let us know your goals for next week too. Do that again the next week. Then join the monthly accountability Zoom meetings to talk through your progress.

And then watch yourself get a lot more done. Finish your book. Write your act. Become a creative powerhouse.

I’ll go first…

Novel

My satirical alternative-history novel about the second US Civil War, Nothing Civil About It, was my main focus.

As per usual, I didn’t get as many chapters done as I wanted, and I’m sure I’ll throw some of these away. I managed to write 5 chapters total, including finishing one that was partially written last week.

I also re-outlined the book.

All of that is below in its raw and rough glory.

I’m zeroing in on the tone of this book and enjoying the process. I’m fleshing out the interwoven plot as I go. I’m in the flight path and looking good.

(BTW, “in the flight path and looking good” is a favorite movie quote of mine. I use it often but no one knows it’s a movie quote. It’s from Die Hard 2. The bad guy (pretending to be an air-traffic controller) says it to the pilot of a packed commercial airliner right before he crashes the plane.)

Screenplay

I made good progress on both the screenplays I’ve got going, advancing 20 pages into Untitled and another 10 in Patrick Stoodle’s Completely Awesome Army of Killer Robots. I also rewrote considerably the start of Act II for the latter, posted last week.

As many of the new Patrick Stoodle pages as will fit are below.

Unrelated Non-Adventure

On Friday I took my boy Charlie (now 18 and out of high school) to our favorite pizza place. We enjoyed our gluten-free pizzas (he also has celiac disease), and when we came back to the car, it had died.

We got an Uber to get him home, and then I decided to walk home from his house, a three-hour journey from Saint Paul to Minneapolis.

It was one of those days that was 90-something degrees and super humid. So, I gave up after about an hour and got an Uber myself for the rest of the way (15 minutes).

My car is still at the pizza place.

Let us know what you got done this week…