Last updated: July 4th, 2025
Summary
I'm mainly writing at the moment.
I'm currently taking a break from being a salary woman to work on several personal and professional projects.
On professional grounds, I'd like to redefine my way of working, reshape my career in IT and find professional opportunities in writing.
On the personal side, I plan to work on my garden to create a haven for bees and butterflies (and all the other creatures that are less attractive but still deserve to live), read a lot of books, be more consistent in my yoga and pilates practice, and in my study of Japanese, and improve my drawing skills so I can illustrate my travel diaries. And many other things.
Priority project
Finishing my new novel (French). First draft is done, now I'm reading it again and again to make it even better.Sides
Those are projects that I'm building on the side when not busy with my priority project, and that will probably become my next "priority projects" when the current one is done.French comprehensible input for learners
Why I'm doing this
I have a passion for knowledge sharing and I love learning new languages. I've been learning Japanese by myself for a few years now, and after hitting a plateau, I found motivation again thanks to the "comprehensible input" method. I combined my passions for language learning and knowledge sharing with my writing skills to offer the same experience to French learners.What I'm actually doing
Lis et écris en français ! (French/English) - I'm publishing content for French learners to help them improve their reading and writing skills in particular. I'm not writing lessons, but instead give advice on how to practice French without studying with the "comprehensible input" aka "language acquisition" method.
Here are my current inititiatives:
- Mainly busy building a community and trying different ideas to find how I can actually help French learners using this method.
- I'm sharing advice on how to use the "comprehensible input" method to learn French on my website "Lis et écris en français !".
- I'm writing a "personal journal" kind of publication on Substack to share weekly short, funny (I'm trying at least) stories that French learners can use to practice reading in French. I try to come with interesting insight about the language with each story.
- I chose to only use Pinterest as a social network to increase visibility, as I now refuse to use any media owned by Meta or X. Being active on Pinterest motivates me to create more visual content for my posts, which in turn improves visibility on search engines, so it's a win-win situation.
- I'm giving Reddit a try. I'm actively answering questions from French learners on existing subs, and created my own (not yet very active). Although the community is not growing yet, this Reddit sub increased my visibility, as I gained subscribers and visitors directly from it.
- I wrote one long-form content (ebook), as one of my end goals is to publish more of that kind of content. Before spending time on all my ebooks ideas, I created a first one to check if people are interested in this format and in hope to receive some feedback to improve the next ones.
Writing about minimalism, decluttering, slow living, feminism, travel (French/English)
Why I'm doing this
This blog has been out there since 2008 and evolved with me to become what it is today. This is where I share other passions of mine that are more on the "lifestyle" side.What I'm actually doing
The Flonicles is primarily a blog, but I also publish guides (ebooks or paper books) on how to declutter or how to organize and simplify the everyday life. Recently, I moved my newsletter from Mailchimp to Substack, where I allow myself to write freely and with few rules (little care for SEO, not trying to stick to limited topics...). I also decided to move all my efforts on social media to Pinterest and not even bother with Meta medias anymore.
- Improve blog posts and refreshing content, both on the SEO and content side. I'm currently going through all my posts, reading them and making them better
- As I decided to invest time in Pinterest, I'm creating more illustrations for my articles.
- I'm translating my articles into English. I don't know if I'll translate all 100 posts I've already written in French, but I'm at least doing it for popular articles and my travel diaries.
- Reworking the general website look and feel.
On hiatus
I started writing The Code She Writes (English) when I changed career in 2020 (from a former 10-years administrative assistant career to working as a developer). That blog had a double-purpose:
- "Learn by teaching": there's evidence that explaining things to others helps improve one's knowledge and notice gaps (cfr the Feynman technique for example).
- Be a "woman in tech": as there is an under-representation of women in tech fields, I wanted to have a public visibility as a woman shifting to a career in IT.
(Also, it helps me find information I've previously seen without going through my favorite links, my Trello boards, my notebooks and so on.)
It's currently on a hiatus, but I still have ideas for it. To be even more transparent, I'm currently figuring out how I'm going to reshape my career in IT, and this blog will be my portfolio. So, before I start reworking it, I have to define a clear plan for myself!