Weekly Accountability Post
for Monday, June 29, 2026
This is the weekly post where we show up to share what we got done in the week. Here’s where we get instant accountability and amp up our productivity.
Reply below to let everyone know what you got done—that’s how this works.
Screenplay and Novel
Get ready for a lot of process talk…
My two areas of creative focus this week were the Patrick Stoodle’s Completely Awesome Army of Killer Robots screenplay and the Nothing Civil About It satirical novel. I fell woefully short of my targets for the week on both, which was 10 pages per day on the screenplay plus a chapter a day on the novel.
I also (hilariously) aimed to write 10 pages per day on another screenplay (an adaptation of my first pen-name novel). No progress was made on that one at all. I didn’t even open the Final Draft document all week.
Instead, I merely rewrote 8 pages of the Robots screenplay and barely wrote three new chapters of the novel, one unfinished. This is embarrassing, and that embarrassment motivates me to show up better next week.
What held me back two weeks ago was trouble writing the “plot point 1” scene, as Syd Field calls it. This is the big turn that launches a story into Act II.
Another way to think of this part of a screenplay (which usually happens around page 25) is the hero’s lock-in, or acceptance of the call to adventure, often after Joseph Campbell’s “refusal of the call” step.
I felt like I nailed that part last week
What held me back this week was what comes next, the first “meeting of an ally” scene.
I’ve always had trouble with these scenes. The only way to nail them, in my opinion, is to know the structure so deeply that they pour out. What’s supposed to happen should feel inevitable.
I also watched a few movies this week to study structure: The Wild Robot, A Beautiful Mind, and Collateral.
Watching movies can quickly turn into a morass of procrastination, but I feel good about the time I spent on it. I cracked the story (adapted from my novel draft) and was able to churn out the scenes and feel good about them.
The 8 new screenplay pages are rewritten from the draft I posted last week. And I have a new system for posting pages here where more should show up. Substack is warning me this post “may be truncated in some email clients,” so, for the full content, read this on Substack.
The rest of my time on the screenplay got eaten up outlining. I re-outlined the entire movie (below) using screenwriter Chris Soth’s “mini-movie” method that I’ve used in the past to get through the wasteland of Act II. I also employed Eric Edson’s “23 Hero Goal Sequences.” They’re similar approaches. Edson’s is far more detailed.
Breaking a story is the most important part of writing a screenplay, and it’s always incredibly challenging—especially working alone. The above two resources helped me tremendously, and I feel armed and ready to jump into the new week super productive.
Hope springs eternal.
Workshops and Courses
Marc Warzecha and I did our first session of “Turning Headlines Into Comedy,” and I had the great honor of introducing David Uribe’s “Comedy Dash” to my list.
Everyone trying to succeed in comedy should grab Comedy Dash (I snatched it up immediately for myself), so I’m promoting it like a madman.
Here’s the link to the webinar replay video and the link to buy. Do yourself a favor and check it out. If you don’t understand it, buy it anyway and take comfort in knowing that you’re locking in an incredible lifetime low price. Once you figure out what it is and how to use it, you’ll be glad you did. You just have to trust me on this.
Sadly, I had to bail on the Writers Room meeting Saturday because I got food poisoning (from parsnips of all things!) and couldn’t function. I was all better after a healing nap.
A good reminder to wash vegetables thoroughly before eating.
All the writing plus two fun asides below…
