Peaks and Pits: Our Weekly Accountability Thread
Saturday Accountability: Week 2
→ This week’s goal: Break out of Act One and take the first irreversible step into Act Two, where new stakes begin to unfold.
→ Word target: 23k words by the end of the week.
→ Looking for some daily accountability? Join the First Draft November Chat to post your daily word count and connect with your fellow writers.
We’ve officially stepped out of Act One and into the upside-down world of Act Two. The rules are changing, the stakes are rising, and our protagonists are starting to lose track of what day it is (and let’s be real, we are too).
At this point, the story can feel both thrilling and a little unhinged—like it’s growing faster than you can catch it. But that’s a good thing!
Today, let’s pause and check in with each other.
Share your peak and pit of the week.
→ Your peak might be a scene that surprised you, a line you loved, or simply showing up to write when you didn’t feel like it.
→ Your pit might be realizing that writing in the kitchen was a terrible idea (the dishes are suddenly a welcome distraction), or that you doomscrolled TikTok on Thursday instead of working on your novel.
Drop both your peak and your pit in the comments below, then reply to someone else’s. Celebrate their wins, commiserate with their chaos, and remind them (and yourself!) that this stage is supposed to feel messy. You aren’t supposed to know everything or fully understand your own story.
We’re in this together, friends. Keep going!
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My peak: holy shit I've written 20,929 words so far this month. I hope this brings me closer to my pipe dream of eventually publishing a novel.
My pit: holy shit what if someone I know actually reads this one day?
But in all seriousness, it's been freeing coming to the page with the expectation of creating mess and trudging forward.
In: messy first drafts.
Out: polished *ideas* of first drafts that never get written because of our (my) fear of failure.
My pit: I hit a wall with one scene, wrote only 200 words one day and 400 the next, and felt so bored by my story that I wanted to give up.
My peak: I kept showing up, decided to skip that scene for now, then wrote 2000 words that took my story in a weird new direction that I wasn't expecting. Now it's fun to write again.