#those last two points you can find expanded upon in posts linked in my pinned post

[oh2e]

Basically there are four biographies of Barry: Isobel Rae (1958), June Rose (1977), Rachel Holmes (2002, updated intro 2020) and (Hercules) Michael du Preez & Jeremy Dronfield (2016). There is also Ann Heilmann’s Neo-/Victorian Biographlia and James Miranda Barry: A Study in Transgender and Transgenre which isn’t a biography but does focus on him. I’ve read the first three and am…in the process of reading the last two (Dronfield gets on my nerves and Heilmann’s is full of academic jargon that I amn’t familiar with so it’s slow going. Interesting but just takes brain power.)

The first two - Isobel Rae and June Rose - are not what you’re looking for and so far du Preez and Dronfield is a bit too disguise-y persona for me. I have since realised it’s flawed (not many footnotes/sources given if any) but I really enjoyed Rachel Holmes’s biography. I found it respectful and it’s probably a decent starting place if you do want to read a biography of his life.

However. These two articles by du Preez - Dr James Barry: The early years revealed (2008) and Dr James Barry (1789-1865): the Edinburgh years (2012) are really good and are the basis for a lot of what is in the beginning of his biography just without Dronfield’s prosaic input. I also really like this article by Mariel Tishma from, I believe, 2020 - A surgeon and a gentleman: the life of James Barry and this article from 2001 [The Life, Work and Gender of Dr James Barry Md (1795-1865)] by A. K. Kubba has a lot of info though from memory I think he leans more into the intersex theory.

E.E. Ottoman (aka David Obermayer) kept a blog (Notes On A Gentleman) where he did focus more on the trans man angle and what it meant looking at Barry through that lens. From what I remember it would be best to have at least a basic knowledge of Barry’s life before reading his work.

Happy reading! I hope something there interests you but feel free to DM me if you want to discuss Barry further - I’m always happy to share what I’ve found about him.

(Things to keep in mind: most things about Barry are #girlboss; he most likely didn’t have any middle names no not even Miranda; that photo of a distinguished gentleman isn’t James Barry.)

Y'all I just did this amazing Pride Tour one of the Edinburgh tourist traps is putting on and it was actually pretty good and anyway I just discovered that Dr. James Barry and I have something in common.

(Namely: he also came to this university and immediately transitioned to male while becoming a doctor, though his experience was, uh, clearly much more dire.)

Anyway now I'm looking for book recs: does anyone know of a biography that handles his gender identity respectfully? I'm not necessarily looking for "proof this person was trans" since I'm not a fan of that approach to historical figures, but an examination of facts under a modern queer lens would be amazing. Please, please nothing that portrays him as a girlboss.

Articles, adaptations, biographies-- anything. I'd really like to read more.

[porcelaindagger]

since this won’t show in the tags from the actual blog

After speaking with some people privately, I had been under the impression that I had been doing a good enough job keeping my head down, minding my own business, and not making a fuss, but it’s evident that this is not the case. I have been back in the community for about a year now as Elle, and since then I have made every effort to use this new alias as an opportunity to turn over a new leaf, make a new start, and be an unobtrusive and altogether quiet presence in the community. I came back simply to write – not to make a fuss or make waves, and I was open and honest about my identity and my past mistakes with those who came to me to ask, and have a small group of people who know that I am Beth, who have known for quite some time now. It was not my intention to “fool” anyone by returning under a different alias, but to exercise the change that I’d implemented in my own life and to show both myself and those who I’d so horribly hurt in the past that I have changed, and that it is possible for people to change for the better. I think the fact that I’ve flown under the radar until now is decent proof that I am not the person I was a year ago; a year ago, I would have gone absolutely nuts in the face of the PSA that’s floating around, and I would have lashed out with irreparable damage – we all saw it happen last time, and it’s because of that that I was so determined not to do it this time. I understand completely why people would not want to be close to me given what I’ve done in the past; I lied, I talked about people behind their back, I pretended to be someone else to hide from what I’d done, I spread slanderous lies about someone who had been nothing but a dear friend to me, and I kept that same friend’s group from receiving the love and praise it deserved simply because I was bitter, paranoid, and malicious in my mindset. I was in a horrid place and going through a downward spiral in which I could not recover from – and though I knew I could not recover, I lashed out and pulled people down with me simply because it was the only option my toxic mindset gave me. I wrecked people who I’d considered family, who’d followed me through hell, high water, and two roleplay groups which ended with my complete meltdown. It was all building up from mistakes I’d made, even before that – in 2013, I copied things from a drabble someone had written; in 2015, I encouraged a friend to write a PSA about another friend simply because I felt that they were drifting from me, and I was so selfish and paranoid that I just couldn’t handle it. I was immature, and felt as if I didn’t have to own up to my mistakes, but as I see the error of hiding from this all and hoping that it’ll just blow over, I think that it’s time for me to put it out there. I was Wesley, I was Beth, and this blog was supposed to be Elle – the new leaf. Elle would never start a positivity blog, only to filter the messages; Elle would never send nasty messages; Elle would never vague blog; Elle would never strongarm someone out of playing the same character; and Elle would certainly never steal, though Beth once thought she could get away with it, and owned up to it.

In my personal life, the last semester has been an absolute trainwreck, and this blog, in my own corner with a small collective of people who I’d told, and in the roleplay groups that I’d chosen to join, was an oasis, and I am incredibly proud of the progress and of the changes that I’ve made in my life, as reflected by my unobtrusive and quiet presence in the RPC. I’ve done my best to be nothing but positive – and those who I’ve found myself close to can attest to that. I never thought of this attempt at a positive new start as an attempt to “trick” anyone with friendship and kindness, and I am so sorry that it’s come across as that, or as anything even remotely underhanded. I hoped that by being Elle and by starting over I could somewhat start to make right the wrong I’d done when I was Beth, and by being kind to those I’d wronged in any way I could, I thought that I was. I never intended for any of this to become a question of lies, victim shaming, or anything of the sort – I was just trying to keep my head down, and mind my own business. I’d even become close friends with one of the people I’d wronged in the past, proving to them that I’d changed before they even knew who I was, and I spoke to another, leaving things on what I assumed was a peaceful note. Perhaps it was a mistake to apply for a character that I’d played so often while I was using my old alias – but I never thought that it would start the wildfire that it did, since I’d been nothing but supportive in doing it. If anyone would like to message me privately, and not anonymously, to discuss the things that I have done, I would be more than willing to do so openly and frankly at my new url, which was created not to hide but to post fandom content rather than rp content without clogging up anyone’s dash.

I do, however, wish to address the claims of plagiarism that have been floating around, as this may be the only chance I have to do so. I understand that everyone’s concerns have merit; I have been a horribly sketchy person in the past, but the claims that are going around now are ones I hold issue with, and I’d like to address them here. Firstly, I’ll start with the claim that I plagiarized an OC from the group I used to run, Fidite Nemini. The character in question is named Holly – I don’t even remember the OC’s last name. A wonderful OC, written by a wonderful person; perhaps the best OC I ever had the pleasure of writing with. But the fact that I also have two characters named Holly is now being called plagiarism, and with this I take issue. First, I have Holly Blanchard, named as such for Holly Golightly. I’ll link her biography HERE. Second is a character in another roleplay that I ran named Holly Gilmore, who was named as such for the plant reference, and because I was going through a heavy Gilmore Girls phase at the time of writing her. Her bio is HERE. I cannot link you to the bio of the OC simply because I deleted the Fidite Nemini main and have no way of finding it. I don’t know where it is, I don’t know what her last name is; the only similarities between these characters is the fact that they’re named Holly and that they’re generally nice, sweet people. I can see how, upon first glance, having a character named Holly might raise some eyebrows, but upon actually reading the bios, it is quite clear that there is no other overlap.

I was also accused of stealing things from the person who played Bellatrix in my group – I cannot link anything here since the Fidite Nemini main has been deleted, but I used, in applying for a Marauders group recently, the bio that I, as an admin, had written as a jumping off point for an application. I’d gone through the old player’s blog to find the biography that I’d written since the main was deleted and I hadn’t saved anything for my own use, and I understand how that must have looked, but had I not deleted everything I could when I left Tumblr the first time. I’d be happy to dig through my google docs and link the application that I’d written up in this post, but I regrettably cannot access the Fidite Nemini bio anymore, or I would. The person who played Bellatrix at Fidite Nemini is, without question, one of the greatest writers I’ve ever had the pleasure of collaborating with, and I must say that it would be very obvious had I stolen from them, as their writing truly stands alone.

I would now like to address the claims that I stole a fair bit of characterization from the user who wrote the PSA about me. I’ll start by saying that yes, I did pin a few of their pins on Pinterest (but I went to a lot of Pinterest boards to create my own), and we have reblogged some of the same things – were I to remain a large presence in the RPC, I would make a point not to reblog musing from anywhere but inspo blogs to avoid this. But I must raise some issue with the claim that I stole a headcanon about sunflowers, a headcanon about running/athleticism, and a FC. I use flower symbolism in a fair number of my applications and characters, and this particular headcanon was written when I read the ProFlowers description of what sunflowers meant (in fact, at the time I was buying flowers for my grandmother, whose birthday I had forgotten, and thought sunflowers might be nice according to the description). I’ll link the headcanon HEREas it includes a link to the article. The running/athleticism headcanon is twofold – the graphic linked HERE is from a quiz which many people in the tag were using, and was therefore not my own doing. But I had put some stock in the character’s athleticism, since it’s both canon that she’d have to be athletic, and because the character is suffering, in the plot, from severe PTSD. It is often recommended to sufferers of PTSD, like myself, and like my combat veteran father, to put much of their anxiety into athleticism, as linked in the headcanon HERE. I put a lot of myself into my characters, and I thought that, as I am dealing with my own battle with PTSD, it would be appropriate to make a point of expanding upon it in the development of a character who very clearly has it. This is not copied and pasted from any blog, nor was it written in an attempt to mimic anyone else’s portrayal. And to insinuate that I am stealing simply because there is overlap in the usage of two face claims is also up for question – I will admit that I did take an interest in Lindsey Morgan as the character because the author of the PSA used her, and I commend you for your excellent FC choice. But the second mentioned, Deborah Ann Woll, is merely a coincidence, and I must take issue with the idea that face claims are exclusive.

In the PSA, it linked things from my old Alice blog that I’d recycled because I am who you all now know I am – were I trying to hide, I wouldn’t have done that. I’d have never been so obvious. I was too optimistic, I suppose, in that I’d kept my head down enough to play this character again, and I truly am so sorry for making you all uncomfortable, and for making you all feel as if I was trying to be devious by going under another alias. All I was doing was trying to mind my own business – and that is what I’m doing now, by turning my writing blog into a simple fandom blog. I’m even further in my corner now, and though I have no intention of leaving my corner, I thought it appropriate to leave this here as both an admittance of everything I’ve done, and a defense of the new character that I’ve built for myself. I understand that the PSA was made to warn people about someone horrible – but I’m not that person anymore. I have nothing but remorse for what I’ve done to those I’ve hurt, and I will never stop regretting the friendships that I destroyed. I considered so many of you my family, and I hurt you. It’s irreparable, and I will never ever stop trying to be a better person because of it. All I wanted was to turn over a new leaf, and to have fun writing with those I could reconnect with, and I apologize from the bottom of my heart for drudging up old hurts. I never want to hurt any of you again, and I never plan to. If anyone wishes to come talk to me about this, so I can explain and own up further, or if you would like a direct apology, I’m now at arhwen. I hope you’re all well, and finish out 2017 well, too.

[svetlanawagner-blog]

When I started our , it was initially an outlet to share photos of our adventures on the west coast. I had closed my wedding and portrait photography business of 8 years, and we moved to LA to pursue Jacob’s budding youtube career. While Jacob kept busy with his work responsibilities, I felt like I lost a part of my identity when I stopped shooting. Out of that time of being lost, this was born.

A big thank you to Travelade for sponsoring this post. All opinions are always our own. This post may contain affiliate links, where we receive a small commission on sales of the products that are linked at no additional cost to you. Read our full disclosure for more info. Thank you for supporting the brands that make Local Adventurer possible.

Last Updated: July 30, 2019

After I decided to start more regularly, I began noticing other s that were making it a career. Seriously? People get paid to travel the world?

I’ve always loved the idea of making what you love into a business. That’s initially why I started our photography business, but felt oddly different and a lot more personal. It took me a while to change my mindset and think of the as a business too. Soon enough, I discovered a new world of opportunities and also a community of s working toward the same dream of full-time.

Content Menu

5 Easy Steps on How to Start a Blog

1. Pick a Topic to Blog About

Picking your niche is one of the most important decisions you will make. It guides you in shaping your content and your audience. You can make small changes along the way, but once you’ve grown an audience, you want to avoid making a complete 180 in the type of content you write. I started off writing about a lot of different topics, because I’m a dabbler and love trying a little bit of everything. Some topics I wrote about in the past were travel, recipes, diy projects, personal goals, and more. As you can see I was all over the place.

I know some say you should what you want, and your audience will follow you for who you are. In my experience, I only saw real growth when I started narrowing my focus on travel. If you are already a celebrity or trying to grow yourself as an online personality, that’s a different story. If you’re is more about the content,  it’s beneficial to have a niche.

2. Choose a Name and Domain

Based on your niche, pick a name for your . This is very important because it’s the first thing people see. It needs to be memorable, easy to spell, and give people an idea of what your is about. You want to be specific to your niche but also careful not to pigeonhole yourself (i.e. If you name your TravelingtheSouth, what happens when you want to move to a different part of the US or world or you want to expand your content to other areas?).

 way to see all your options, but then it takes you to other sites like GoDaddy, Network Solutions, etc for purchasing the .

3. Register Your Domain and Choose Web Hosting

At this point you can go one of two routes: self-hosting or a free alternative. If you’re looking to start a as a hobby, get a free . The unfortunate part of this is that the name does not look as good (i.e. yourname.wordpress.com, yourname.tumblr.com). In addition to that, you’ll have a lot more limitations on design and plugins when you don’t own the . For those reasons, I highly recommend self-hosting. Now, what does that mean?

There are two components:

The Domain is basically the URL. For example, localadventurer.com is the .

Hosting is renting space on the internet. You use a company that will store all your information on their hard-drives connected to the internet.

For your , you can purchase it at a number of sites. Here are a few that we’ve tried:

Google Domains – I like to look at my options through DOMIZE, but once I find a name I like, we now mainly use Google Domains to make purchases.

GoDaddy – This current site is still through GoDaddy, but all the newer ones have been through Google. If the price is the same, it doesn’t make much of a difference. It’s just a matter of preference. Just go with the cheaper one.

There are a lot of options for hosting as well! Here are some popular options including ones we’ve tried:

DreamHost is who we’ve used for the longest time because of their customer service, and we needed one that could handle our size. Since then, we’ve outgrown them and now use a small specialized service that costs way more but can cater better to our current needs.

BlueHost is also a really popular hosting option for a lot of s. They offer cheap plans, easy setup, and technical support.

HostGator – we previously used on for our wedding photography website.

4. Install WordPress

Although there are other alternatives, WordPress is by far one of the biggest platforms and the one that we use. Besides being huge, it’s easy to set up, free to use, and there are tons of themes and layout options. If you are using DreamHost or BlueHost as your hosting, they have easy WordPress set up wizards. Just follow their instructions, and if you have any trouble, they have great customer support. I’ve used Blogger in the past but ended up sticking with WordPress. WP FTW!

Sites like Squarespace and Wix make it really easy to put together a pretty site but is very limited in customization. Anyone we know who has used them eventually outgrows those sites and moves over to WordPress, but if you’re looking for a simple site to deal with they are great options.

5. Design the Blog

This is the fun part but can also be daunting. There are thousands upon thousands of free WordPress themes out there. As you’re starting off, just pick one where you like the general look and start familiarizing yourself with how everything works. They are limited but having fewer options will make it less confusing at the beginning.

Once you have a better idea of what you need, you can take the next step and find a paid theme. Most of the time, these will give you much more flexibility in your design and customization. Each has its own pros and cons, so be sure to do your research before purchasing anything.

If you can’t find a theme out there that meets all your needs or just want something that sets you apart from what’s already out there, hire someone to design and build you a custom . We used a paid theme that we customized for a while until we needed more from it. In our 6th year of , we finally hired someone to help build a custom site to meet our needs. If you need a referral, send us a note to hello@localadventurer.com.

Pinterest board to pin all the websites that inspire you. If you have a web or graphic designer, add them to your board.

A Simple Travel Blog Alternative

Starting a is easy. Keeping up with it takes a lot of work. If you’re looking for an easy way to share your travel tips, there are other options out there like Travelade.

Travelade has built a site where you can easily create travel guides for any destination in the world. You can customize your theme, create different collections, easily add items to each collection, and more. On top of that, each of the items automatically includes address info, website, rating, reviews, and photos. After creating a guide, you share it with your audience and you earn a commission for bookings through your guides. 

It’s a great option if you have a following (i.e. on YouTube or Instagram) and want to just point people to a guide you created without building your own site. It’s also a great option if you’re just looking to share recommendations with friends and family.

Check out this Travelade that I made in 5 minutes. You can obviously go into way more details on your tips, but it’s amazing how quick the whole process is. Just to give you a comparison, it usually takes us at least 20 hours to do a full post.

Create your first Wanderguide here.

Favorite WordPress Plugins

Bloom (https://www.elegantthemes.com/plugins/bloom/ AFFILIAET LINK?)- our email opt in to help grow your mailing list

JQuery Pin it Button for Images – can customize your own pin it button.

Pretty Links – you can rename links to make them all look pretty and clean.

Yoast – Helps you with SEO to show up better in search engines. There is a free version which works great. We only recently started paying for the premium version so to look at multiple keywords per post, which saves time but isn’t necessary when you’re starting out.

WordPress Editorial Calendar – so you can see scheduled posts in a calendar format.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – It shows related posts at the bottom of your post, and you can choose what you want to feature.

Apps We Use for Social Media

Tailwind for scheduling Pinterest (Get $15 when you sign up with our link). I use the Unlimited Smart Schedule to save on time. You can manually pin, which I did for the first year, but we got to the point where the time I put in to manually pin wasn’t worth it.

Grum.co for scheduling Instagram. We do this for LocalAdventurer, but for our personal accounts, we save drafts in Instagram.

Hootsuite for scheduling twitter and facebook.

ConvertKit for mailing lists.

More Resources

How to Travel for a Living

30 Days to a Better Blog

So that’s it! This is definitely just the tip of the iceberg, but it’s a good start to get your up and running.

Last but not least, we want to tell you how much we appreciate you reading our posts, commenting, and supporting us via any affiliate links. This has been a labor of love, and none of this would have been possible without you. We wish you the best in starting your own , and let us know if you have any questions.

Have you considered starting a ? What other information would help you as you start yours?

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SEE MORE ON HOW TO BLOG

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UGLY TRUTHS OF BEING A TRAVEL BLOGGER

JUNE 2019 – HOW WE MADE $13.1K+

MAY 2019 – HOW WE MADE $30.9K+

APRIL 2019 – HOW WE MADE $21.7K+

MARCH 2019 – HOW WE MADE $17.7K+

“Discovery consists not of seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes” – M. Proust

Esther + Jacob

Esther and Jacob are the founders of Local Adventurer, which is one of the top 5 travel s in the US. They believe that adventure can be found both near and far and hope to inspire others to explore locally. They explore a new city in depth every year and currently base themselves in Las Vegas.

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