A Tour Through Blogland Team Starnes Style

The lovely Yalanda from Laugh Anyway nominated me to participate in the Tour Through Blogland a couple weeks ago (I had to push it back because of the move), so without further ado, here is a little insight into the behind the scenes at Team Starnes!

What are you working on?

Currently, I am working on curating my South of France posts, exploring my new city and nearby villages in Scotland and, of course, a few design collages—just because they're fun!  It's likely the blog will take a backseat until after the new year; in between house-hunting, exploring my new city and traveling home for the holidays, there's a lot going on—just sayin'!

How does my work differ from others in its genre?

Well, I hope it's my tone and personality! ...and maybe my photography style?

I'm pretty sure I fall into that 'american-who-moved-abroad-and-started-a-blog-to-keep-up-with-family-and-friends-and-then-fell-in-love-with-photography-and-traveling-around-europe-and-now-it's-just-kinda-evolved-into-something-more' category. Sound familiar?

Honestly, I am veryyy self-conscious about my writing. I am NOT a natural writer. I struggle to put my thoughts, and tone—I just want to be unique!—into words, so I typically like to keep it short and sweet. I wish that I could just sit down and write out a meaningful post and feel 100% about it, but I can't, so here at TS you're going to get a lotta photos with just a little background and writing. (unlike this post! ha!)

There are soooo many travel/expat/lifestyle blogs out there that having a connection with the author and author's personality is a must. I don't read anyone's blog that I don't think I could be friends with in real life, so if you enjoy reading about my adventures abroad and like that I am silly, outrageous, sarcastic and a lot little bit snarky sometimes, let's be friends! Really, I just want to be fun and share cool pics!

Why do I write/create what I do?

Two reasons: record and community.

Since moving abroad I have fallen in love with photography (read: landscape photography) and this space is where I organize and store all of my adventures. I am a "photo-dump" kinda girl—so shoot me! This blog is where I house my all frozen memories!*

So many times you hear expats, children born abroad, and people in general! say that they wish they would have kept a journal or a diary. At the time, you always think that you'll never forget that silly moment, the way it made you feel, how breathtaking it was, but, unfortunately you do. Geeze, I can barely remember my wedding a year ago! It's hard to remember everything; all the detail, all the moments, all the emotion.

Ultimately, I write/create this blog for myself. This blog is my diary, and I hope to be able to look back in 10 years and see how far we've come! I love looking back and reflecting on everything James and I have accomplished, but I also really enjoy the community that comes along with it! Virtually meeting and interacting with people who share your same lifestyle is soooo nice and comforting. There's truly a great community of expat/travel bloggers out there and I look forward to meeting many of them in person one day!

How does my writing/creative process work?

Have you heard of lazy blogging?** Well, I am a lazy blogger, and lazy blogging is what I do best, BUT!— in the spirit of answering all the questions, listed below is my creative process in steps.

(steps related to travel posts)

Step 1: Get inspired—aka: find a picture on Pinterest or another blog of a beautiful or unique place.

Step 2: Nag husband about exploring said new found beautiful/unique place.

Step 3: Get the go ahead from husband to travel.

Step 4: Travel and explore.

Step 5: Take a TONNNNNNN of photographs.

Step 6: Come back from holiday and marinate... Like, for a while. (This is where the lazy blogging comes into play.)

Step 7: Eventuallyyyyyyyy edit photographs in Lightroom.

Step 8: Curate photographs in blogger post.

Step 9: Wait until the very last minute to write some words.

Step 10: Re-write and proofread probably 10 times.

Step 11: Press Publish.

Step 12: Re-read published post and make more edits and update post.

Step 13: Put a teaser photo on Instagram.

Step 14: Share post to other social media.

And now I would like to nominate my good friends:

A Southern Lady in London 

The Lovely List

Footnotes:

*dear lawd, help me if this blog fails! this thought is the #1 reason I want to change to WP! eeeek!

**lazy blogging: getting around to it eventually. no rush. no urgency. even if that mean six months later... #eh