SSL and Time

[Haramcha]

I have this genius habit of walking home from work every day. It’s about 35 degrees Celsius most of the year here in Bangkok year-round, it’s a couple of kilometres between work and home, and the vast majority of that distance is covered by a single street. A street of many lanes. A street that is extremely trafficked. In other words, it’s often hotter and more heavily polluted than most other places in the city. Every day, I come home covered in sweat, to the point that my dear girlfriend will inevitably request that I change my garments before even taking a seat. Today, during that little 30-minute walk, a question kept knocking on the door of my mind: how much time do other SSL-participants spend on SSL, and how do they find it?
 
As some (meaning my teammates) are aware, life’s been somewhat eventful as of recent. Lots of work. Language classes and the homework that follows. Random work trip to India (shout out to any Indians here on SSL; even though it was a work trip with just one day off, it was an amazing experience, and I hope to return sometime soon). Now weekend work (I’m writing this on Sunday evening… after spending all day at the office).
At the same time, I am trying to write Joe’s Journey and catch up with the current situation within the SSL. At present, it is an entire season behind. Yikes. Problem is, as I’ve mentioned in previous articles, that rushing the progress of the story would only lead to missing out on storylines that I wish to explore sooner or later. It might be meaningful to write even longer articles, but I believe they’re already at a point where it’s difficult to keep people engaged, both because of the length of each individual piece of the story, but also because of the time it would take to catch up as a reader. The real solution might just be to skip some of the subplots that have long been in the drawer.
 
Better yet, I could stop writing these unrelated articles that only delay the story further (but which feel necessary when it’s around midnight on Sunday and tomorrow’s work is already looming in the distance).
 
For any readers: how do you go about finding time for either writing stories or fulfilling roles within SSL?
Is it a matter of structuring time? Getting things done well ahead of time whenever possible? Prioritisation? Or something else entirely?
 
Hope I manage to find a little more time in the coming week, so we can get through Joe’s second professional season soon.

[rrf_1]

Joe's Journey has been a staple of the weekly media scene for a while. It's always a good read, and I can tell you put in a lot of time and effort to perfect the articles. Sorry to hear you have been finding it hard to keep up with the story!

As someone who has also done some large weekly article projects here, I know how difficult it can be to stick to the pace, which is why I usually take breaks between my 8-10 week "writing sprints". In those breaks I can not only recharge but also start planning and structuring out the next series, doing some of the hard work upfront like making decisions or researching. When I'm actually trying to find time to write, I find it's best for me to keep the draft on the Notes app on my phone, and I'll revisit it throughout the week, even if just for a few minutes at a time. End of the day, life can get busy and it takes prioritizing SSL over other things sometimes. And if there isn't the time, it might be the right thing to just keep moving forward as hard as it can be to skip something you like. In the end, an idea you have might actually end up being better suited for a future piece :) Good luck!

[Frantik]

I love reading Joe's journey's. I hope you find the time to unwind, relax and tell us what he's been doing!

graded :)

[Haramcha]

Joe's Journey has been a staple of the weekly media scene for a while.  It's always a good read, and I can tell you put in a lot of time and effort to perfect the articles.  Sorry to hear you have been finding it hard to keep up with the story!

As someone who has also done some large weekly article projects here, I know how difficult it can be to stick to the pace, which is why I usually take breaks between my 8-10 week "writing sprints".  In those breaks I can not only recharge but also start planning and structuring out the next series, doing some of the hard work upfront like making decisions or researching.  When I'm actually trying to find time to write, I find it's best for me to keep the draft on the Notes app on my phone, and I'll revisit it throughout the week, even if just for a few minutes at a time.  End of the day, life can get busy and it takes prioritizing SSL over other things sometimes.  And if there isn't the time, it might be the right thing to just keep moving forward as hard as it can be to skip something you like.  In the end, an idea you have might actually end up being better suited for a future piece :)  Good luck!

Thank you for the kind words!

Your articles were actually among those that inspired me to use SSL to write a proper storyline. Initially, I'd mostly just joined to sort of get an idea of how sim leagues work anno 2026 (I vaguely remember there being these very primitive proto-sim leagues back some 20+ years ago). 

Also appreciate you sharing your process; perhaps I should try to engage a little more with the story outside of actually writing it. Thus far, I've just got this big OneNote document with future story ideas and concepts, but that means I only ever really engage with it when I intend to write, which can keep motivation somewhat at bay throughout the week. Using Notes or similar to jot down partial ideas and whatnot might just be the way to go, so thank you for the suggestion :-)