TIME MANAGEMENT

LegalDispatch 105

Jul 19, 2024

Greetings from New York, where I’m at work on the script for the second issue of my next Star Wars series. Speaking of SW, I binged the final two episodes of The Acolyte this week and damn if that show didn’t stick the landing. I honestly wasn’t sure how I felt about the series as a whole until the finale, but the writers really pulled all the threads together beautifully in the end. The show took some real bold, big swings and added some intriguing new threads to the Star Wars tapestry — something that I think is vital if the franchise is going to continue and thrive.

And it didn’t hurt that the lightsaber duels in the series were among some of the best in the franchise’s history, particularly in the finale.

Strong recommend.

IN ANY LIFETIME (UPDATES)

Reviews are starting to come in for In Any Lifetime and the feedback has been beautifully positive. A sampling:

A beautiful love story fraught with action. An emotional roller coaster ride. You can feel the raw grief and pure desperation as Jonas tries against all odds to reunite with Amanda. You find yourself willing him through the journey. Beautiful, all encompassing writing that keeps you hooked to the end. - Minneapolis Mom (5 stars)

This was such a stunning love story. I absolutely adored it. He explained the quantum mechanics in the book in a relatively easy and believable way. Also, the way Jonas was so singularly focused on his love was both maddening and heartening! - Lisa Flip (5 stars)

Marc Guggenheim’s fascinating tale of resilience and love in the face of incomprehensible horrors and fantastical elements is incredibly compelling. It packs a solid punch right to the heart. I could never have expected such a powerful story. - Kashif Hussain, Best Thriller Books

A thrilling ride, filled with suspense, emotion, and thought-provoking ideas.

Given the unique blend of romance and science fiction, this is a captivating read you won't be able to put down! - Silver’s Reviews

In addition, I believe we’ve SOLD OUT for our New York City 8/1 launch event, but tickets are still available for our event at Barnes & Noble in Los Angeles on 8/3. Buy tickets here.

Q&A

Dilan Gandhi wrote in the comments:

I read your book as part of the UK’s First Reads equivalent… And didn’t realise until your newsletter just now that you wrote it. I had somehow thought it was just a coincidence the author had your name and didn’t think twice. You’re so prolific, not a surprise you’re about to become a best selling novelist. I don’t get how you have the time, and would love to hear more about your time management process.

OMG, how this message warmed my heart. Thank you, Dilan. This put a huge smile on my face that’s still there.

As for your question re time management…

As you might imagine, I get asked this a lot. My time management philosophy was largely shaped by my experience practicing law.

When you’re a lawyer at a firm, particularly a big one as I was, you have to account for your time in very precise increments. In the case of the firm where I worked, I had to record my time in six-minute chunks and I was expected to bill a certain minimum number of hours per year. The upshot of all this was that I felt highly motivated to make sure that as many minutes as possible that I spent at the firm were “billable.” This meant little socializing, little procrastination, etc.

I find that I’ve tended to carry this practice over into my career as a writer. Now, this isn’t to say that I don’t procrastinate. Believe me, I circle the runway as much as anyone — particularly lately as circumstances in America cause me to doomscroll ad nauseum — but when democracy isn’t burning, I’m usually pretty good about sitting down and getting to work and staying focused and productive as I do it.

Practicing law also meant juggling a lot of cases. Real life isn’t like TV, where the on-screen attorneys only have one case per week. Consequently, I learned how to juggle and triage, a skill that I’ve found very helpful as a writer and, particularly, a showrunner.

That said, I haven’t run a show since the pandemic, so I’ve found — as I may have mentioned before — that I’m not switching among projects as much throughout the day. Rather, most days are dedicated to one or two projects, determined by deadline proximity and urgency.

There’s an argument to be made that, when I have the flexibility, I should prioritize projects that I’m feeling particular inspiration for. I love this idea in theory. A lot. But for myself, I find that prioritizing based on inspiration is dangerous in that I run the risk of waiting for inspiration to strike and that is simply death for productivity when you’re a working writer. Rather, I prefer the idea of “pre-inspiring” myself by knowing what I’m going to be working on tomorrow and kind of “psyching myself up” for that project the day or night before.

Overall, if there’s a magic bullet to time management, I haven’t found it yet, but to sum up, here are the general principles I (at least) aspire to:

Work to minimize procrastination.
Work to minimize distractions. When working, work. Focus. Stay in the moment/zone.
Have a plan. Know what you want to get accomplished each day. Be realistic about setting those goals. If anything, under-promise (yourself) and over-deliver.
Don’t wait for inspiration to strike. And don’t (solely) triage based on inspiration. Strike when the iron is hot for sure, but don’t get stuck waiting for it to warm up.

Mark Bickford writes:

Good luck with the novel! I have a quick and (hopefully easy) question: you used Boston for Star City, National City was Los Angeles, Chicago was Gotham. But... what did you use for Central City on The Flash? I assume that the wreck of STAR Labs was placed over a stadium, but what real city did you start from? I could never figure it out.

Hey, Mark. Thanks for the question. Good name. In the first season of Arrow, we stole stock footage from a variety of different cities to establish Starling City (as it was known at the time). In Season 2, however, we got money from the studio for a helicopter unit with which to film our own establishers and we chose Boston. We did this for two reasons. First, it seemed that of all the cities we used in Season 1, we made the most use of Boston, so there was some consistency to that choice. Also, I’d spent eight years living in Boston prior to moving out to LA, so there was a bit of sentimentality on my part which played into the choice.

To be honest with you, I don’t have a perfect recollection of which city was used for The Flash (as I didn’t work on that show apart from the crossovers), but I believe that the city used was Vancouver, which is also where most of the Arrowverse shows filmed. And you’re correct that the STAR Labs establisher was CG-augmented/altered footage of a stadium in Vancouver that all the shows filmed at pretty regularly.

SHOOTING MY MOUTH OFF

In this latest edition, I chat with Alex Morrissey of the Tradecraft podcast. You can check it out here: