Last updated: July 25th, 2026
Summary
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 and earning money.
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
Write my next novel (long term project)
I decided to write a fantasy novel, which is very new to me. I spent about months working on character sheets, plots, timeline... Next six months or so were dedicated to writing. I'm now busy with improvements and getting feedback from beta readers.
Sides
Those are projects that I'm building on the side when not busy with my priority project or when I need to put my mind at something else. They're either maintenance tasks, one-shots, or groundwork for future "priority projects".
Writing about my Japanese trip on The Flonicles
Why I'm doing this
It's a way for me and my partner to relive those moments, while sharing with people who want to organize their trip to Japan on their own. Since there's a lot of interest in Japan at the moment, it's a great time to post this. This is a long term project.What I'm actually doing
- Sorting pictures.
- Writing posts in French and English.
- Updating related posts with internal links and references.
- Maybe updating part of previous posts content to avoid redundancy.
Quitting GAFAMs
Why I'm doing this
I don't want to support GAFAMs and other non-ethical big tech companies. I want to move everything I can to services and compagnies that respect privacy, when possible located in Europe.What I'm actually doing
- Making the inventory of every service I'm using that belongs to unethical companies.
- I'm moving my data and hosted services one step after the other.
- Sharing about that journey on my Substack in hope it inspires others.
Personal curriculum
Here's what I'm learning at the moment, not only for professional purpose but also for personal growth.
- Learning graphic design and editorial graphic work. I'd like to be able to create professional book layouts and draw book covers. This is a long term learning goal, which concretely includes: upskilling my hand drawing, learning how to draw with a pen tablet, watching tutorials and attending online courses in graphic design (general or book oriented). I might start creating zines about topics I learn about to practice those skills.
- Learning Japanese: reading a book with anecdotes about food. One big step for my Japanese learning: I finally dared writing in my books!
- Reading about China, Chinese history and politics.