I moved my main email there last August (2025), and I am somewhat active on Substack Notes (actually very active to most standards, but with very limited engagement). I was really bullish on it at the time, because the platform is amazing : short notes, but also long articles, you can post images and make pretty carousels, add videos and AUDIO to your emails... It feels like the platform of my dreams.

But 10 months in, I think what I might be enjoying is just the medium. And that makes me reconsider everything.

I wrote very briefly that platforms are medium. Which is part of my broader idea of strategic disloyalty : "I treat my socials, Substack Notes, my YouTube channel, and all the social media circus as second-tier spaces. I can't take them seriously as creative partners. Because they're not. To these platforms, I'm just another account. So to me, they're just interchangeable entry points."

Substack is a nice medium. Very flexible as I mentioned earlier. But Substack is NOT just a medium, it's a social media. So it's a medium that requires a culture.

And I'm not sure I enjoy the culture on Substack.

But you can't take away the culture out of a social media medium. It's not like oil painting or collage, where you can really shape to mean whatever and use in whatever situation. The medium of Substack has to BE on Substack. You can't bring it to another place, unless you build that place, and then it's something else entirely.

social media = medium x culture

if you will indulge me trying to reconnect with basic maths

So what _is_ the culture on Substack? It's soft. Rounding corners and drinking tea. I log onto Substack Notes and I see the thoughts of gentle people on lovely walks. There's little real spontaneity, no mission, no statement, no real business. It's often about writing about writing. To some extent, all platforms do that. But I feel like Substackians are a little blind to this. The format the platform rewards feels to me like it's encumbered by big words and trying hard to be smart.

And it bugs me. I drown in clouds (it's not without reason that one of my first statements here was "fuck format"). My best stuff on Substack has always been in reaction to this culture, never a contribution to it.

And I don't think that's very healthy. That makes me think Substack should not be the place that I actually try to inhabit. Even though I really really really want to enjoy the medium of Substack. And even though I really really really want to make it a place for people like me.

To be fair, I've been active online for 10+ years (in a full-time job kind of way), and the culture fitting has always been the hard part. I swear I'm trying. And I'm not, like, saying, "Oh, culture doesn't accept me." It's just, I understand that I am made in such a way that makes me difficult to read for most people, and that makes most people difficult to read to me. Historically, I try too hard to fit.

"very square peg, very round hole" - as Iris says in The Holiday

Or, in math language :

experience = medium-fit × culture-fit

Which brings me to a perhaps more interesting idea.

When AI came out and people started dreaming about what the world could become (I feel like we don't talk about the effect of hope on people in that way, and we tend to dismiss it as 'hype', but not the point here).

When people started dreaming about what the world could become, I LOVED the idea that AI could free us of format. Or more precisely, that it could allow us to experience stuff through our preferred formats.

Catering to our particularities when it comes to learning and consumption of information. For example, I will enjoy a good video or a documentary sometimes, but I much prefer doing my learning through reading, and if possible with tons of images. As a creator, I prefer writing, and will pull my hair from the roots if I need to edit extended videos again.

AI made me imagine a world where a piece of content could be produced in whichever form the creator prefers, and consumed in whichever form the consumer would prefer.

To some extent, I got my wish. AI made text-to-speech and speech-to-text MUCH more reliable, and I am now using tools such as Reader (affiliate link), which allows me to read YouTube videos and podcasts. And sometimes, when the world has been particularly overwhelming and I need to lay in the dark, I can even listen to some books, without needing a specific audiobook. It's never perfect, often awkward, and sometimes buggy, but it works.

Even without specific tools, 'reader mode' on Safari allows you to read an article in the color scheme of your choice, in the font you prefer... Effectively freeing the content from format.

I CRAVE the same thing for culture.

That's why I'm bullish on making websites at the moment. Because I don't feel like I'm finding my culture fit anywhere else. So, in a way, I use the internet as a huge medium to make a space where MY culture IS the fit.

And here's the long reason why (reasons to have your own website).

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

We've ended up in a digital world that broadly no longer respects us. Platforms, in particular, have become the equivalent of sticky flypaper. They trap us inside algorithms, with hollow visual tactics, and even if they CAN be spaces for learning (with serious curation work), they've mostly become spaces for wasting time. Creators doing honest sharing work are lost in the sea of optimization.

The most radical solution is to stop using them altogether. To stop setting foot on Instagram and the likes. To give up the algorithms. To build in your own corner of the web.

I'm genuinely tempted. But the problem is, you're not in my corner. And if we want to create a world where innovation and the sharing of ideas are possible, where we can make a living from this work, at a sufficient scale, and accessible to everyone… We still need to make ourselves known, and find interesting people to follow.

We could advocate for the return of libraries as space for sharing, to the web of the forum era, to word of mouth. But I don't think that's realistic. At least not yet. And probably not with some SORT of platform use.

The only current solution that actually holds up is to prioritize the mailing list. An email list (with real people reading on the other end), that you can take with you wherever your needs and desires lead. That's why I like Substack (you can export your subscribers and leave the platform at any time.)

I genuinely believe this is the heart of the solution: distribution flexibility. That's why I treat my socials, Substack Notes, my YouTube channel, and all the social media circus as second-tier spaces. I can't take them seriously as creative partners. Because they're not. To these platforms, I'm just another account. So to me, they're just interchangeable entry points.

I call it strategic disloyalty.

And this is a rough list of what it entails :

• not confusing your followers for your audience
• having a way out
• having your own website where you take people regularly (and not just to get their emails and sell stuff)
• actually make your website a cool place to be (see : reasons to have your own website)
• not thinking you NEED to be HYPER consistent on your youtube or whatever
• take breaks to rest
• don't accept shitty new functions because 'they'll boost your visibility'
• use social media to be social before anything else
• don't be shy to recommend your website and other people's website
• actually always link to people's website and NOT their socials
• find ways to post that ENRICH you
• be a hyper curator (this should be a post)
• don't take recommendations as creative rules
• add back your own creative rules / think about the way you WANT to do thing / having standards
• puuuuush back
• sell stuff
• don't rely on ad money

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

1. it's a calling card that you actually own
2. creative practice
3. technical practice
4. marketing practice that's performing in a good way
5. strategic unfaithfulness in practice (see strategic disloyalty)
6. it's cool af
7. signal of seriousness
8. time away from algorithms
9. being actually PART of the WEB
10. you make the rules there
11. you can sell stuff there
12. you can talk about stuff there you wouldn't dare to talk about on social media
13. you don't have to see other people's opinions on there
14. no stupid comments
15. one hub for all your socials
16. you don't have to pick a medium (video, visual AND text as you wish)
17. you can make it look however you want
18. in control of what you show to people (and in which order, and how)
19. no distracting tech and buttons (if you wish so)
20. you really feel like you're building something overtime
21. to be cool and counterculture
22. to be traditional (both can be true)
23. to learn things
24. to be real in the eyes of the robots crawling the web
25. to be referenced easily
26. to be easily checked out (especially if your name is your domain name)
27. to link to your favorite websites

raaah would have been cool to at least get to 30 but nothing else comes to mind, no matter.

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

But this week, I came across a post by Kel Rakowski where she lists the STANDARDS of her publication. And YAS, yet another way to write a manifesto!

I think it's brilliant to officially lay out a list of your writing standards.

First, on a human level, it's great to understand the principles behind the publications I read. It answers the question: do we share the same values? And from a creator's perspective, I think it's not a bad idea to take a couple of minutes and reflect on what you're actually doing when you write.

It helps resolve conflicts that make us procrastinate, rekindle the flame through first principles, and make decisions that aren't always easy.

It's also a great MARKETING tool. Yes, I'm putting that word in bold, because it's a word that scares people. But in reality, knowing how to market yourself, how to sell yourself, is mostly about knowing who you are, what you do, and what you do NOT do. So a list of your standards is something you can display on your 'about' page, publish in Notes, or share on other platforms. See the last paragraph about the human benefits of doing this to understand the potential of the virtuous loop.

And it's FUN.

So well, my blog is still too young to make this list totally official, it will probably change A LOT, but... some principles I will follow no matter what, because they are at the core of how I think about writing, especially online.

This is this list :

• make it personal : i've come to realise and appreciate really personal writing, funnily, personal makes it more universal and useful
• don’t format my voice : I think in both languages, I use weird expressions, I make mistakes, and that makes it all more personal (so I guess this is the same principle as the one above)
• fuck format : this is rather new, but yeah, I want to just... write more. and that means being less attached to 'the rules of writing' (hence why this blog is not edited, and lenght-diversed)
• link, link, link : ideally, I would link to one person and at least one of my other pieces of writing everytime I publish, this is the way of the healthy web
• make it interesting for me : if I don't find it interesting, I don't pursue, if I don't find it fun, no more either, I need to get something out of it all (seems so obvious when I write it down now, but I am a high masking autistic woman level of people pleaser, I have done a lot of things I didn't want to do)

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

imagine that, and then hitting your claude limit for the day, just short of one or two (or 10) perfectionist-modifications. if only you had a couple more tokens...

I suspect Anthropic makes a lot of money in situations like these. I was close to buying a $100/m subscription.

luckily, I needed to pee

while going from my living room to the toilets, I go past the painting I started weeks ago. it's full of colors, and possibilities I can't picture.

the heat makes you do things, like taking up the pastels and starting to carve out a cathedral/glasshouse in the top right corner of that painting. and then, while you're at it, a swarm of red butterflies too, on the left. suddenly, you've been painting for 15 minutes, and your hands are full of colors.

when you run out of tokens, it's time for art.

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

This was my conclusion after I'd seen more than my fair share of creators spending up to 10K€ on a website that did nothing but... tell people who they were. Sometimes with a little blog. Those websites were overcomplicated, bloated, and my non-technical clients were not capable of changing even a single line somewhere without calling someone for help.

They were blown away when I would show them a platform that they could actually use and understand. So that even if I was the one setting it up for them and making it look the way they wanted it to look like, day-to-day they didn't me to update it. PLUS, the same platform would handle sending newsletters, posting blog posts, and SELLING products for them.

The only downside of platforms like Podia is - even if the team there did a WONDERFUL job making a tool that looks good and has lots of potential - it's still a platform. And so I would sometimes run into tiny annoying limitations, like not being able to add 3 buttons, or make them different colors.

Not a big deal you'll tell me. And yes, that is still my opinion too. The success of a website doesn't rely on the colors of buttons. But it would sometimes be difficult to accept things couldn't be EXACTLY the way we imagined it.

Another, perhaps more serious, limitation is : if you stop paying the platform, your website goes down. Or if you want to change platforms, then your website needs to be redone somewhere else from scratch. With probably a different set of limitations.

I never stop experimenting with platforms and website and design for my own curiosity and to be able to help my clients better. I see the way some platforms are changing, like Podia who is now more of a community platform by default. I see new very cool functionalities, like the MCP on TinyPages (aff link), which allows you to add sales page, emails... directly from your favorite AI.

And I see IA. The way it's getting REALLY good at making HTML files, and how easy, even for a non technical person, to just... ask for things to happen and it will.

So I'm changing my recommendation : I think the most efficient setup should be

• a main website, done in HTML, light, that then sends people to
• a selling platform to buy your products
• a email platform to subscribe to your newsletter (could be the same as your selling platform if need be)

That way you have all the advantages :

• files can be easily moved, transferred, modified with any IA, coder, host... you become very flexible on that front. all your sales pages should be on that website too.
• you are not tied to a platform, you can sell from any and change as you go (the only thing to do is to add your files to the new one)
• and you can go from Substack to any other emailing platform

It's the most FLEXIBLE setup. You can follow the trends if you need to, you can redesign your website on the go with any of the current performing IA...

Also, because I got this comment once or twice: it's secure. What will be on the website you manage with IA has NO personal data. All the emailing and selling, I still recommend you go through a platform, because that's still the easiest way to set up those things.

What you need for this is :

• a domain name (I like Squarespace domain for this)
• a Cloudflare account (free, and that will be your hosting)
• a GitHub account (free, to store and push the files)
• a selling platform (Podia or TinyPages are my recommendations)
• a newsletter (I use Substack and Podia, but MailerLite (aff link) is one too)

And if that sounds difficult, it's not. It's just one thing to set up. Ask your AI or take a consult with me, we'll set it up together and talk about what that can look like.

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

I'm in awe of painters. Particularly I'm in awe of the way they share their processes so freely. Truly, they will show you when they are painting, they will show you the notebooks, the failed attempts, the way they corrected themselves, and you can find a lot of them explaining why and how they changed things, what they are trying to do...

You can feel what being in their heads feels like. Which is such an underutilized pedagogical tool. (I could rant here about how the internet is too formal in its pedagogy but I'm trying to keep it to one topic here). Their generosity has been an ENORMOUS help in my own practice.

It's also exacerbated one of my ongoing frustration with writers.

I spend a good deal of time listening to writers talking about their work. Or rather, I'm TRYING to listen to writers talking about their work. And I guess that's the thing with writing, because it's about ideas, writers tend to speak about them rather than processes.

Which is fine and makes for interesting conversations. But it's not a great tool to learn.

In fact, as I'm saying this, I'm thinking (maybe wrongly though because I'm shooting from the hip), that writing has A LOT to learn about freeing itself from the way painters have freed themselves from form and norms.

It's very rare for a writer to share the actual process of writing: what they think about while doing the writing, why they used that word there, what they changed, how they edit... There's hardly any content online that shows that. Rarer still to see it happening live.

Recently, I was ecstatic to see Visakan Veerasamy sharing a bit about how he renamed the subtitles of his substack articles. I spend a good amount of time looking at the picture.

It seems to be the norm for painters. But there still seems to be a sort of 'cloaking' of the writing process. To keep it mysterious? I don't know, it's probably not intentional. But it sucks.

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

in fact, it's perhaps what my consultation clients like the most : i see the route that saves everyone time and money.

specific example : I had a client come to me with a whole new system she wanted to organise. she was coming to me because she had a hard time knowing what to start with and getting herself to actually put the technical infrastructure into place for it to work.

the gist was : she wanted to add a free tier to her current community, and this meant :

• planning and modifying the spaces so not everything is open to everyone
• modifying the sale page to add this new free tier
• plan exactly how she was going to animate this new space
• launch and all

this was the first part of her plan, the rest included adding some paid courses on top of it, and a specific tier for consultations as well.

so when someone comes to me with such a plan, my first objective is translation : determine what needs to happen technically in order to execute the essence of what the client wants to happen.

in front of this client, I had three thoughts :

• the obstacle is not technical, she could be doing the stuff easily, she had already mapped out 50% of a plan - I could get her to 100% and maybe even offer to do it for her, but... the obstacle wasn't really the technique
• the obstacle was really overwhelm (too much to do for an uncertain result)
• the essence of what she wants is to show people on the fence why her community is a wonderful place

now I have to say : people come to me also because I'm very well acquainted with digital product selling platforms. I know the features, I understand the structures, and I see quickly what needs to be done.

the platform she is using is Schoolmaker (affiliate link, but that's not the point of this post). I know the platform allows a free tier, but I know they also offer a free trial period for paid tiers.

So I propose to my client to instead of setting everything for a free tier, to get to the essence of her problem, to just add a free trial to her existing community offer. People see the inside of the community for X days, they get a feel for the space, they can even ask questions, but she doesn't have to do any more engagement.

If the free trial is a success, but it gives away too much, then we move on to a free tier. And if it's not a success, then we know a free tier wouldn't work anyway.

Free trial : one click on a button. No need to modify anything on the sale page, just a couple of lines of text. 10 minutes of work.

VS

Free tier : 4H+, a bill from me if she wants me to do it for her, and on-going efforts to keep the free space engagging (don't let anyone tell you having a community is an EASY way to earn money).

3 days after, I had an email from my client saying she had already enrolled new members, and a glowing review.

I went a bit far in the details of this story, it kind of sounds like a brag. I guess it is a little. But what I really want to do is to document the kind of work that I do that has the most impact, and that also is the most satisfying to me.

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

(see : the internet is wonderful)

These days, work feels like a constant battle to get taken seriously. I feel like I need to bring back each client by the back of the neck, and I need to deploy extreme measures just to... survive. I’m uncomfortable with this whole situation.

So this project: someone reaching out to me for my specific creative voice. It landed like a clue.

The second big one in a series of clues, actually. Clues that are knocking on a door I was consciously keeping closed.

I’ve always been a creative. I mean, I sing, I write songs, I paint, I write, I played on stage, and even wrote some plays when I was younger... Yeah, I can say I’m a creative person. But I never allowed myself to think I could be a creative person for real, professionally (nuance there is needed, but let’s go with the flow).

This is purely economical. I’ve heard it’s hard being a creative, I’ve heard hardly anyone makes it, I’ve heard it’s a life of scraping by. So I have never entertained the idea fully.

Instead, I’ve mostly made a living as the next best thing : a teacher (and all related titles of consultants, coach, tutor and so on). Obviously getting bored with it all every 3 years or so, and throwing it all back on its head to become another KIND of teacher everytime.

You can’t say either that I’m fully following the script. I mean, making money on the internet is very edgy in my neck of the northern french plains. But it’s not about HOW I make money. It’s about how I ACT about the whole thing.

(see : what i did)

I finally put it into words this week : I’ve been acting like a good student trying to get a diploma, instead of the creative adult that I am.

I’ve been following scripts still. Clicking on too much ‘here are the definite rules of how to be successful’. Thinking things need to be a certain way because... because that’s how other people do it. There’s some good in that, but mostly, I’ve played it like I was going to be graded at the end of the term.

Gotta add a little pixie magic dust into it all. Bring some FUN and PLAY into it. And this ties back to my current obsession about fucking format (fuck format), and how to do more while doing less. It’s tying back with all my past 6-month of ideas about :

• what it means to live a creative life
• leaving the script of analytics and algorithm behind
• even my book Organons is about this

It's all pushing me to just.... stop following what 'you need to do to have success', and just do what feels right. Becoming the creative ADULT that I am.

Now that I think about it, even my song Rubicon is about this. lol

Oh what doofus I am, I've been trying to tell myself this stuff since forever.... Ok I'm listening now.

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

I'm not going to talk about the creator herself, I want to talk about the content of the video instead. Because it so typical it made me mad.

the structure makes sense, the arguments are proven with data, the person clearly has done this before - that's not the issue. The issue is : never in any second of that video is the person even mentioning THINKING about what you want to say before you start filming.

In fact, the structure she talks about requires no thinking what so ever, and to just 'do the stuff that's successful on other creator's channels and pages', and 'follow this exact structure'.

and... aren't we past that? as a culture, as a generation, as responsable people?

The submessage of this type of content is : to become successful online (which is always framed as 'getting tons of views', which is not really the same thing but well), you need to BE this exact sort of person, that says this exact sort of thing.

worst part is, this message is coupled with the idea that 'people will tune in because it's you'. but if you're saying the same things as everyone else, and doing the same things as everybody else, and filming the same way as everybody else and... what's the point of having eyes on you if you can't be yourself?

I guess this means I need to tackle the prompt 'if I was to start again....', and make it actually useful. Yeah, this is a better vector of ideas than a rant, let's do that.

If I had to start online again, I'd :

follow my curiosity 450% more

I've been so miserable trying to do stuff for the sake of 'success' or 'money'. My favorite and often most lucrative opportunities came from me being myself fully and talking about thing that genially interested me, in the way I was most comfortable doing it.

make more friends / participate in conversations / send emails to people I admire

My autistic self has got to admit that even though it's extremely draining, it's also the most interesting part of being online. So I don't like social conversations, but commenting on other people's posts, engaging with the content, sending emails to people I admire and telling them specifically what I find cool about them... That's the stuff. i wish I had been more aware of this sooner.

produce volume / be a prolific scrappy creator from the start

This might sound contradictory to what I was saying earlier, but I do believe in volume. I believe the good stuff cannot surface if you don't disturb the waters. you can always delete later, you can always do it again, you can always go back on your words and change your mind. it's cheap, do more of it and don't be precious about what it looks like PLEASE. oh what ideas I could have had and projects I could have launched if I wasn't too precious about what I look like on camera, or if that PDF is professional enough.

develop opinions / theories / ideas

same idea really, but it took me too long to stop playing the game of parrotting people with some success and to start actually writing about what was in my head. and when I did, well, it's a whole new level of confidence and competency baby. it's also 100% more marketable.

stop doing the stuff I don't want to do

I'm riffing off the same theme but it took me sooooo long to consider I didn't have to make videos of my face if I didn't want to make videos of my face. everything else becomes easier once you allow yourself to don't do the stuff you don't want to do. (see : let AI lace your shoes)

I think that's all. I can't guarantee this will give you views, fame, 10K months and what not. But I'll guarantee one thing : you'll get opportunities, pride in yourself and an enormous slice of FUN.

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

• “there was no expectation to be a star, no “mama I’ve made it”. There was just a mortgage, kids and I’m in the greatest profession in the world, how do I keep it going?”
• “where I like my career the least is when I feel like i feel like I’m doing something that 100 other actors could do. That’s where I feel I’m wasting my time. When I’m doing my unusual little art (and it may not be good art but it is art because it’s specific) then I’m very happy.”
• watching him trying on character voices for the mad hatter : he’s playing tennis and just plays… testing and he has some ideas and he tried them on in real life. It’s not a “office job” he doesn’t have to be there to work on it.
• “I would say my career has been 80% failure and I think those are pretty good odds” - guess I’m watching this as a way to become an adult artist and less of a good student
• “what Marty does now, he was going back then” - eugene levy about Martin short when he was a kid and a teenager
• “at that time, I did all I could do theatrically” - having a period of time where you say yes to everything that comes your way as a education in your craft and your taste
• he is best friend with Eugene Levy since forever it seems - and he joined a group of creative in Toronto (scenius) - “I don’t think you’re aware you’re in a particular group or a particular time”
• “I wanted to be Sinatra, I wanted to be a singer, an actor. But I was starting to feel like I’m behind on everyone. That I limited myself, that I’m going in a kind of circle. I don’t feel momentum” - before his big break, his friends have all been hired somewhere he did not audition for and his wife has a record deal in the states
• But : inspiration break, he was inspired by some improvisation group and that was like “of course I should be doing this” and went to Second City
• about second city : “it is the best place to learn a lot of information. But once you know it, you got to do something with it. You just can’t stay there.”
• “I think it's insane if someone says, "Oh, I had a horrible time making that movie. I hated making that movie but please let it be successful" Cause if it's only gonna be successful at the box office, that’s very unlikely. The experience you can have in your soul is the experience of doing it. Was it creative? Was it fun? Did you have fun dinners? Was the hang good?”
• organised Christmas parties where people performed. Lots of actors and comedians. Andrea Martin said she hired a vocal coach. Steve Martin spent 6 months learning a song on the banjo. I read this as “this was an occasion to learn and to grow and to have fun at the same time". Silly projects.
• “Loss is something to negotiate. It’s going to happen to all of us and we must celebrate and continue that voice and never let it go.”
• “nothing works, then something works”
• “ I like to think I was the best version of myself on the last day of my life”

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

I've added two entries to it today. which feels like a direct reinsurance from the universe, given I was NOT doing that well on the confidence front yesterday. It's actually rare that I remember this file even exists.

I've set up a reminder to use my monthly review as an opportunity to add to it, but I'm still very blurry on what constitutes a 'proof I know my shit'.

so far, it has :

• compliments from people I trust
• extraordinary feedback (like that one time a blind man told me my Podia course was so clear he was able to follow it without any issues)
• stuff my clients have been able to achieve thanks to my work with them
• positive interactions with people I admire
• projects I was able to put together
• stuff I'm proud of (I realize I'm always proud of what I produce on some level, because I consider it already extraordinary that I'm able to produce anything at all, but there's stuff I'm proud of more than other stuff you know?)
• ways I've reacted or interacted or dealt with something (usually something along the lines of 'I was able to do this things I was not able to do before' or 'I stood my ground')

Looking at this list, I realise my favorite and the rarest category is the last one. I should be more aware of these.

Maybe examples would be a good thing (also might be a good thing to be more open about what I'm proud of in public) :

• Upsold a client mid-consultation: "do you want me to just do it for you?" 350€, yes, done. Spotted the opportunity in real-time and closed it. Would have been too precious to do that even a couple of months ago.
• Invested in myself by buying a walking pad and actually integrated it into my life. It's not sitting in a corner. It's part of my days now.
• C. (client) updated me on the decision I advised her about, and not only it is working but I didn't have to ask : "Encore merci pour la consultation de mercredi : c’était un plaisir de te retrouver humainement et aussi de profiter de ton efficacité pro !! Merci encore."
• Chatted 30mins with a French YouTuber I'm a real fan of (hiiiii, and it FELT fluid and natural)
• Wrote a book (I just finished Organons V1, it's been awesome, and I already have material for a second one)
• Went through a real tough consulting session both because of the environment (construction noise, a big trigger for me), and decisions from the client I wasn't very keen on : 1H, was still efficient and coherent, and we solved the issues, everyone happy now and yeah (but now I need a nap)
• fired a client I didn't want to work with anymore (we really did not understand each other)

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

here is a short history of what I’ve been paid for :

• weighed tractors during the harvest, analysed proteins and humidity levels of wheat samples (countryside first job)
• taught English to : school kids, but also small kids immersion kind of thing (did some baking in English with 5 yo - very fun)
• taught English to adults in private and in businesses (also for a time in a proper language school but they made me teach via phone and a super dated software which is worse than anything)
• started a blog about it and made some pennies with a short book
• taught French, via courses and private lessons online - this was Just French It
• managed groups of teenagers abroad during the summer
• I still make websites (mostly on Podia) for creators who want to sell digital products and generally help these creators with their online ecosystems
• made good tutorials about the tools I was using
• I’m advising people on selling online, content marketing, systems of creation and learning…
• sold courses on anything from marketing to productivity, and journaling.
• wrote books a few more books : Organons and Comment bien vivre son ambition créative (both of which I want to rewrite entirely in english)
• oh I forgot about my profitable Medium era as well : I wrote content in English about anything from having better ideas to living abroad

As I’m making this list, it feels never ending and super varied. Which I like. But it also felt random and aimless to live it all.

One of my goals these days is to become more aware of my strengths. This is prompted by a desire to change paths again. But to, this time, do it in a way that is not strictly “ill become this job title” or “ill default to this thing I can apply for” or I’ll teach what I know. Or basically I’m in a mood for : making my own decisions, and not waiting for stuff to happen to me anymore. (I think the key to this is : the internet is wonderful)

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

oh how difficult it is to make chapters for a 3 minute video… why don’t you let ai lace your shoes as well?

It’s my first mean-ish comment in a while. I had forgotten such people even existed. But well, let’s use it as an opportunity for a clarification.

Yes, it’s difficult for me to go back to rewatch something I have written and recorded to add chapters to it. Why? Because by the time I publish something, I’ve heard all the bad parts dozens of times and I have doubted the utility of my work at least twice (if not my own utility in the process). Yes, even for a 3-minute video (although my videos seldom are 3 minutes long but let’s not be picky).

So doing it again, watching it one more time, just to add chapters is not just “watching 3 minute of video”. It’s giving myself another opportunity to delete it all.

But that’s not even the point.

The point is : if you can even take one little task you don’t like doing off your plate, why wouldn’t you do it ?

Puritans we are not. Pain is NOT the point.

ESPECIALLY when the task in itself is not the core of the stuff you’re publishing. This particular video about how adding chapters to your YouTube videos. Why on earth would people CARE if I do it myself or get help to do it ? Viewers don’t care if I do my taxes myself or get an accountant, do they ?

Arg. It makes me angry. Not this particular meaner, I don’t care what he thinks. It makes me angry because it’s the sort of little comment that stops people from putting stuff out there.

It’s the sort of comment that leads to stupid perfectionism over format and aesthetics and postural-content. When what the web needs is more…. scrappy, fun, direct, real stuff.

EDIT 2026-05-22 - I expanded this into a Papier (in french) : Comment en faire moins et publier plus

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

• wanted to try a simple AI setup that costs me nothing (already had the domain, and the Claude subscription, the hosting is free via cloudflare) - which is why it’s called marie.mariedrouvin.com, a little too much Marie but well, no new domain. (to write : I believe in a scrappy web)
• wanted a place where I could post whatever without it being on social if I didn’t want to - I already had a Substack and a newsletter (more than enough actually, I need to simplify it all a bit) and a blog is the perfect way to fuck format
• wanted to also have a place I can use as a collection practice in the future (link to visakan article on collections). I have published a lot of stuff over the years but it’s all scattered and cannot be retrieve nicely into collections
• also I am heavily influenced by people who have the practice of publishing a lot and regularly. They seem to get a lot of joy, recognition and use out of their blog. so I think it’s a good thing if I at least try to do something similar for myself

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

But I kept stumbling on Sari’s content. So I gave it a try on the premium for a year, mostly because I really liked the idea of the mind map. When I get stuck on something, it always feels fresh to try a less “writey” approach (kind of related to :fuck format).

More specifically I was excited about the ability to plug Readwise highlights and have them “separated” as highlights (as opposed to living in source files, as they do in my notes).

I imagined I would use the mind maps to put together highlights into collections . And that would help me be a better writer (ideation, sourcing, challenging, deepening… my practice).

This was 6 months ago, and none of that happened. Instead, I recently discovered a much better use for the tool (see : platforms are medium).

First off, I cut the Readwise integration. It was blurring things, too much volume (I’m a big highlighter).

Second, I decided I was going to use this tool for more visual stuff. Not another Readwise, but something I can use for examples of visuals, quotes… more like a smart Pinterest.

And third, I decided to always add what I save to a collection. Meaning things don’t just… live in the account, they form something over time.

That’s when it started to become useful.

Example. I had this weird statement in my head for a while : there’s honor in risk. Which, feels (and still is) incomplete. Doesn’t quite say anything yet. Kind of like a suspicion. There might be something there. So I created a collection with this phrase and I added stuff that gave me the same ‘suspicion’. A quote from the hobbit, a lyric from Raye, a citation from Cyrano de Bergerac. I didn’t quite know where I was going with that but those things made me feel something in common.

I could just let it there. That’s already useful in itself. Maybe I’ll resurface this for a later project.

But I clicked on the chat button. Which gives you a prompt to paste in your fav ai with details about each item you added. And I found the answer super interesting !

Let me paste you the Claude answer :

Two things that jump out:

First, there's a through-line about _transformation through difficulty_ — Bilbo becoming someone new after killing the spider alone, Raye's cold that teaches the heart to burn, the cavalry lined up before the unknown. These aren't just "be brave" platitudes — they're about what _happens to you_ when you do the hard thing. You come out different. Named. Forged.

Second, there's a quiet grief underneath the boldness. Théoden mourning what might be lost even in victory. The blogger mourning the lost art of slow, tedious research. Cyrano insisting on _his own lines_ in a world that wants shortcuts. The collection seems to say: yes, take the risk — but don't pretend it costs nothing.

Quick actions you could take:

1. Write a thesis — something like _"risk isn't just courage, it's the willingness to be changed by what you do"_

2. Make it a newsletter or essay — the Cyrano + Bilbo pairing alone could carry a beautiful piece

3. Pull out a visual direction — cavalry + vintage glamour + fantasy maps = a very specific mood board worth naming

4. Use it as a creative brief — for a project, a series, a season of work

5. Sit with the grief angle — there might be something more personal and vulnerable worth writing _from_ this collection, not just _about_ it

Ai is slopping a little, but yeah : the honor is the risk of losing yourself a little, regarless of the outcome. What I think maybe even more interesting are the quick actions (maybe I'll grow tired of them if I do this too much), but the 'visual direction'. noice.

So yeah. I feel like I've truly unlocked a new tool with this approach.

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

a few years ago, I was running a small youtube channel for french learners called Just French It, I left that channel 4 years ago, youtube stopped paying me for ads as well, so I had sort of assumed people were not watching anymore. turns out I was wrong.

some of those videos are STILL accumulating views (this month the channel is recording 72H of view time which still feels insane). one of the most popular types is : french readings. I had forgotten all about that. And as much as I didn't enjoy making videos, I remember that readings were a nice kind of performance.

you sit down with a text, and through trying to interpret it different ways, you just learn to say it right. and by that process you learn it deeply (which imo is kind of same thing as love).

anyway, this morning, I was reminded of all of this by a request from a (very cool) musician asking me if I'd be down to record some poems for her next performance.

Isn't it wonderful?

because when people say 'internet is an opportunity', we (well I) tend to think about money and business and services with proper offers and jobs and all the tralala of modern economy. but it's also that.

the internet is a wonderful place of opportunities, and those opportunities are larger than our own imagination

weird stuff you'd never think you would be doing

charming and incredibly uplifting

Makes me want to start a list of cool projects I've been a part of simply because I was active online. For another time.

Actually looking for more stuff like this ! Contact me mariedrouvin.com@gmail.com.

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

when you know how to work their algo, you can turn :

• Pinterest into a tool to make peace with your body
• Twitter/X into a space where cool conversations are happenning (and nerds are posting)
• Substack into a language learning space
• or YouTube into a window into a whole different way of living

whatever you are interested in, you can (and imo should) consider the platform as a medium, and absolutely REFUSE the default shitty experience

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

Why? Because I’ve been wrecking my brain on how to come up with a good hook/intro for a post on Les Papiers all day. I know what I want to say, I have a plan and yet…. The intro. It’s usually what gets me. Once I have a good one, I can go on forever but if I don’t… I feel angleless and everything turns to mush. I start to question the whole purpose of the piece, which generally leads me to doubting my own too. I’m kind of dramatic that way about my work.

Actually let me clearer : I thought it was the intro. But now I’ve realised it’s because I’m putting again another set of expectations on my writing : format. I don’t just write, I write an article. And that’s what’s mucking everything up. Because not every idea will fit into an article. Sometimes it just wants to be a Note, or a short tutorial. Or… some kind of format we are not used to. That’s kind of the reason behind this blog.

My most favorite writers have blogs. Oftentimes loose blogs where the articles are short or long or messy or structured. And I never quite understood why they would “hide” their writing up there. Surely, most blog posts are as good as Substack articles. But now I understand the distinction. You CAN make anything into a Substack article. Meaning : you can write a 10000 word essay or 10 lines about a joke. The system won't stop you. That’s actually a thing we forget about platforms, you don’t HAVE to follow the cultural format.

see : platforms are medium

So although we might be able to write a 2-lines substack article, we mostly don't. But that's the thing with blogs : a blog is a place where the cultural medium is determined by your own stupidly personal habits. The cultural norm of your own blog is you.

I’m not sure I’m being clear. Let’s try this way : even though a platform can be used many ways, it still has a preference. And it’s hard not to follow the herd down the cliff. You get influenced against your will. So having your own space is an answer to that. There, you can write however.

Funny how I thought this was going to be a short, couple of lines max, kind of thought. Almost could have been a Substack article. And hey, it can still be !

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

I don’t believe it’s about writing or drawing. Nor do I think it's about the making of the memory. It's about finding ways to create something tangible out of the experience of your life. It sounds very woowoo. And it’s going to sound even more woowoo when it get to the point about symbols and talismans. But oh well.

What I mean is that by creating something you go beyond just the vague memory in your head. You make something you can actually go back too. It’s partly the act of creating that makes it more real. But the important piece is the stuff that’s created that links you back to what you want to remember from this part of your life.

Maybe an example will be more telling.

I sometimes write songs. My songs are about stuff that's happened to me. Feelings I’ve had, dreams, emotions, actual experiences. I have this one song about this feeling of wanting to be a ghost/spirit. Wanting not to have a body anymore. It’s a talisman of that feeling. When I feel it now, I associate it with the song. And I remember the words and the melody. It’s not just “oh I’ve felt like that before”. The song IS the feeling.

Another one is about a dream I had. It’s telling the story of the dream : "standing on the banks of the Rubicon, holding on so tight, can’t let it slip… I want to be the snake in the river." It’s the dream I had. I remember waking up afterwards and being SO enveloped in the feelings of the dream. I’m not a magic-believing person. Dream analysis no. But I wanted to turn the feeling into a snapshot. Something I could hold on to be reminded of it. A song is the perfect medium for that.

Talismans. That's what writing songs is like for me. Making talismans. I think that’s a good goal when you want to make art or create stuff.

It’s helping me specifically also not to get any ideas of grandeur. I’m only doing it for me. About what I feel and see and experience. As soon as I try to “make a great song”, I don’t have anything to say. Or it’s really crappy. Making talismans is a much better goal.

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.

• Cyrano de Bergerac (english edition here)
• Le mystère de la chambre jaune (english edition here)
• Friendly ambitious nerds — Visakan Veerasamy
• Rest — Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
• Art of being — Erich Fromm
• The man in the brown suit — Agatha Christie

ARTICLES I WISH I HAD WRITTEN

• Are you serious? - Visakan Veerasamy
• A blog post is a very long and complex search query - Henrik Karlsson

PEOPLE THAT INSPIRE ME

• Visakan Veerasamy
• Raye - her album This Music May Contain Hope is simply a masterpiece
• Natalie Merchant - Come On Aphrodite is the song that made me understand religion
• Elizabeth Filips
• Nicola Galita
• Joan Westenberg
• Univrsw3th4rt - there is something so pure fun about this girl, her blog is a constant reminder to be personal and to strive for good things

DOCUMENTARY THAT FASCINATED ME

• Let The Canary Sing - Cyndi Lauper
• Ways of Seeing

TOOLS I LOVE

• Reader (Readwise) - my reading and note-taking system, I love it (affiliate link)
• Podia - all-in-one selling platform: email marketing, sales and website (affiliate link)
• TinyPages - French alternative to Podia, lighter and AI-powered (affiliate link)
• MailerLite - dedicated email marketing tool if you don't need a full selling platform yet (affiliate link)
• Fillout - forms and online payments (affiliate link)
• TidyCal - online scheduling, much better than Calendly and cheaper (affiliate link)
• Sublime - a web bookmarking tool that's a lot more actually (see : ive unlocked sublime)

STUFF THAT MAKES MY LIFE EASIER

• real whiteboard roll that's kinda magnetic but more useful to stick on walls or a plank (affiliate link)
• spiky ball for occupying my hands (affiliate link)
• comfortable earplugs in every room (affiliate link)

Read more posts at marie.mariedrouvin.com — or find out more about my work there.