Nine Years of Blogging: A Look Back at Diary of a Flopping Fish

diaryofafloppingfi
Jul 26, 2025
3 min read

Well, I can’t believe it’s been nine years since I signed up with WordPress and launched this blog. I’d love to say time flies when you’re having fun, but honestly, it’s more accurate to say that sometimes, time just flies.

The Beginning

When I started this blog, I wasn’t sure what it would become—I was simply searching for a creative outlet. Over time, it began to take shape into what you see today. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but I’m proud of how far it’s come.

I love revisiting earlier posts and seeing my growth. I can’t view my original post from 2016 because I’ve since redesigned the site and re-released some older content in a more polished form. This blog post titled The Embers of Hope was edited and reposted Jan 8, 2022, and it’s painfully clear that I had no idea what I was doing. Back then, my only real tools were the ability to write and to create art. This blog post was a very fitting place to start because it came from something I wrote on my experience working as a cashier in a rather toxic workplace for a boss who ruled with fear and fake smiles.

Learning to Blog

Diary of a Flopping Fish has been a journey of not just in finding my voice, but in developing an entire skill set I didn’t start with. I’ve had to become a social media manager, an SEO learner, and a DIY website developer.

I began on a free WordPress plan without even a custom domain name. Eventually, I talked myself into the value of upgrading to a Personal Plan and buying a domain.

Still, I faced a lot of uncertainty of what to write about, how I wanted the site to look, and how to navigate WordPress themes and design limitations. Learning to use the platform was almost its own blog topic.

One major challenge was discovering that many helpful plugins used for managing, designing, and monetizing blogs weren’t available to me. I upgraded from the free to the Personal plan, but I still couldn’t access plugins without moving to a much more expensive subscription.

Every how-to guide I found started with “download this plugin…” and I simply couldn’t afford to. So, I learned to do things the hard way. Maybe someday I’ll write a guide on using WordPress without plugins because I know I’m not the only one in this boat.

SEO, Design, and Growth

Another major learning curve was understanding SEO (Search Engine Optimization). For those unfamiliar, SEO is what helps your blog or website appear in search engine results which is crucial if you want to reach people.

When writing alone wasn’t enough, I started using Canva to resize photos and add logos to images featured on the blog. Later, I began incorporating my own original artwork into site graphics, and that really helped refine the site’s overall aesthetic.

There are countless other programs that I have learned, and that doesn’t include the varous web applications I have used by this point. I even took a graphic design course so I could learn how to create my own brand guide, and properly edit the graphics I’d like to use for this website. Sure, I did include a portfolio page, but at this point, this whole blog is my portfolio and a testament to how versatile I can be.

Of course, no one person can be perfect at everything. Shout out to my amazing boyfriend who always reads my posts and tells me where my typos are. I also can’t create all of the images on my own, and sometimes I use stock photos from Pixels, or an AI generated image through the WordPress app or Canva when I am running low on time or inspiration.

Looking back over nine years, it’s amazing to see how this once bare-bones creative writing blog has grown into something with more depth, personality, and visual identity.

Looking Forward

There’s more to come from Diary of a Flopping Fish—both here on the blog and beyond. I’m exploring other formats and creative projects, and I’ll share updates when I have more to reveal.

In the meantime, I hope you continue to enjoy and find value in my content. Thank you for being part of this journey.

Are you working on a project for the long run? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

Or find me on social media!