Mightier Acorns

As I type these opening sentences, it is Tuesday afternoon, October 14, 2025. Despite having all the time in the world, thanks to the ongoing Disruption, I find myself in the position of not having any new content ready to post this week for the first time in nearly two years.

Facing the blank page with a deadline, even one I set for myself, is a stressful thing to do. I work the way I do so I don’t find myself in that position very often. So my first thought when I realized I have backed myself into this corner was:

What an opportunity!

Staying Ahead

Normally, I keep several weeks’ worth of posts in my Drafts folder. That means keeping track of about six posts at any time, in various stages of development. During normal times, I only get to work on family history stuff in between the normal business of life, usually stealing an hour or two after work during the week or digging in for a few hours on Saturday or Sunday.

My process involves taking some of that precious time and going through the trees I have on various platforms. I go looking for gaps or questions, and add notes and updates to new draft posts, tacking ideas onto them until I can string together a thousand or so words into something like a story.

When I keep enough new ideas going in draft, it is easy to spend a little time each week scheduling those that are ready to be posted, reviewing and editing, and maybe finding or making something to illustrate the post.

The furlough began a couple of weeks ago, after I had already decided to put some quality time into working on the Callan One-Name Study. Putting time into that project ate into the time I usually reserve for putting the blog together, and now, I have “caught up” to myself!

Getting Ahead

For those of you who aspire to write regularly, I suspect that many of you struggle with this “blank page” moment; and I can recommend taking a few steps to get out ahead of your own deadlines so that you can be more in control of your production schedule.

First: pace yourself.

Don’t feel like you need to produce a fully researched master’s thesis every week to be successful. This is a blog – a web log – tracking your progress and giving you a platform to say, “Here’s something interesting!” I’ve set my pace for Mightier Acorns to be two posts per week, and while I usually have to fight to keep my word count under 1500 words, I also remind myself that 500 words can be enough.

When I plan out the drafts for several weeks in advance, I can also identify those ideas that “have legs” and threaten to expand to several thousand words, and break them into pieces.

Second: “Perfection is the Enemy of the Good”

Nobody likes to feel like their content is disposable, but… it kind of is. For me, the content on my blog is meant to be fun. (We all have different ideas about what “fun” means.) As far as I am concerned, the work that needs to be of the highest quality is what ends up on WikiTree. (And even that is meant for constant, small improvement over time.)

If the point of your blog is to act as your personal JSTOR, then yes, you should work hard to make everything correct. But if the point is to share highlights to draw your family in or share tips with your fellow genealogists, they will forgive you if you have an occasional grammatical error. So don’t spend too much time on “making everything perfect” or you will never get ahead.

Third: Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself.

Not only am I happy to re-post favorite essays (usually adding either an illustration or a research update), I’m also happy to cover the same terrain as older posts. (See “On Writing Consistently” for some of these tips, written differently!)

Take A Break Sometimes!

In drafting this post, and looking at my schedule, I can see that I’ve been doing much of what I set out to do with Mightier Acorns since re-launching on WordPress in June. And, since I know I’m going to be busy for much of the rest of this week, especially Saturday, I think I can allow myself some time off.

So, if you have read this far, be advised: I will not be posting anything new on Friday. And if Saturday goes horribly wrong, you may not see anything the week after… but rest assured, I’m still enjoying this work, and I’m looking forward to rejoining you soon!

Until then…