How I Lost My Writing Home for 13 Years

I used to write almost every single day.
Then... I just stopped.

And it took me … too long… to understand why.
(The last post I wrote on my site was Oct 13, 2013! Holy crap, 13 years later)

Looking back, I don't think I ever completely stopped writing. I still posted on my social media but…

If I had to blame one thing. it was because of one software decision.

Lemme share a bit of the story…

I used to write a lot. I mean, a lot.

Back when article marketing was actually a legitimate way to generate traffic. I'd write an article, publish it on my own website, then submit it to places like EzineArticles so it'd get syndicated elsewhere. It was a different era of the internet, but it worked, and I genuinely enjoyed it.

I think it worked because I had two things going for me. I had time, and I could get inspired by almost anything. A random thought would pop into my head, I'd sit down, write for while, hit publish, and move on with my day.

But as time went on, things changed.

My niche changed. Article marketing slowly died. The sites I used to syndicate to disappeared. Naturally, my own website became quieter too.

Then one day, GrooveFunnels came along promising to be the all-in-one platform that would replace WordPress, I bought into it. Actually, "bought into it" is understating it. I believed in it.

I manually ported my content over because I genuinely thought I was moving to something better. Better SEO. Better themes. Better everything. It was supposed to be a WordPress Killer.

Instead, it slowly became the reason I stopped writing.

The blogging side of GrooveFunnels was... honestly, just painful to use. It was buggy. Search engines barely wanted to index anything I published. Features that were promised either didn't arrive or arrived in a state where I couldn't really rely on them. Every time I wanted to publish something, there always seemed to be another little annoyance waiting for me.

At first, I thought, "It's still early. They'll fix it."

Then days of waiting turned to weeks, to months, and eventually, to years.

Somehow, every “update” seemed to focus more on the next exciting launch instead of making the existing product solid.

I can laugh about it now, but back then I kept thinking, "I've already moved everything over. Surely it'll get better."

It didn't.

Looking back, I also learnt something about myself.

I'm more of an avoidant.

If something consistently frustrates me, embarrasses me, or reminds me of a mistake I've made, my natural instinct isn't to fight it head-on. It's to quietly avoid it.

I wasn't consciously thinking, "I'm never going to write again."

It was just… Every time I logged into my website, I was reminded that I'd made the wrong call. I publicly supported GrooveFunnels. I recommended it to people. I spent hours manually moving my content because I genuinely believed in what they were building.

So instead of fixing the problem, I just... stopped logging in. Stopped publishing.

Before I knew it, my own website had turned into a place of ick. Where I just dreaded posting content. I only logged into make short URLs (and even then… it was a pain).

Ironically, I was still doing okay because I could rely on social media. I knew how to generate traffic, build relationships, and make sales without depending on SEO, so life went on.

Then something happened that completely destroyed whatever confidence I still had left in the platform.

I track almost everything. Probably a little obsessively. I take screenshots, save records, and generally keep receipts because I've learnt not to trust my memory.

One day I realised that someone I'd personally referred had upgraded to the Lifetime plan. Great! Affiliate money~

Except... the sale wasn't credited to me.
It had somehow been credited to someone else.

To make things even stranger, this wasn't just some random affiliate. It was someone I actually liked, and one of the GrooveFunnels staff members was publicly talking about what an amazing affiliate they were and how many sales they'd made.

Meanwhile, I was sitting there with screenshots showing that person had signed up through my link.

I contacted support.
I showed them everything.
Silence.

Eventually I reached out to the other affiliate directly. To their credit, we managed to sort something out ourselves and I received part of the commission, but the whole experience left a really sour taste in my mouth.

Not because of the money.

It was the complete lack of accountability.
No apology. No acknowledgement that anything had gone wrong.
Just... silence.

That was probably the moment I stopped believing.

Oddly enough though, I still didn't leave.

Part of me kept thinking that with so many people buying into the platform, surely they'd eventually have the resources to fix everything.

Every time I checked back in…

Another launch.
Another promise.
Another “exciting” announcement.

The platform? Still. Rigged. With. Bugs.

Eventually I just avoided it completely.

Years later, a random thought popped into my head.

I wondered what had happened to the GrooveFunnels Facebook group because it had over 200,000 members. There’s no way it’s just gone, right? I searched for it and couldn't find it anywhere.

After a bit of digging, I realised it'd been rebranded to Scale.gg.

GG. Good game.

As a gamer, I couldn't help laughing a little. It somehow felt fitting. Whether they intended it or not, that was the moment I mentally accepted that chapter was over.

I wasn't going back. I briefly considered returning to WordPress because, well, at least I knew it worked.

Instead, I decided to do something I'd never seriously considered before.

I decided to vibe code my own website.

The funny thing is I'd already tried AI coding before and hated the results. It felt clunky, messy and nowhere near good enough.

But AI had improved. And now, finally, even the free tools are as good as the paid ones. Maybe I had become better at knowing & explaining what I wanted too.

I tried again. Then again. And I just #KeepTryingUntil (gotta use my own hashtag somewhere haha)

I experimented with different tools, different LMSes, different approaches, slowly piecing together something that actually felt like mine.

Every little improvement made me want to keep building.

The website wasn't perfect. There were still things I wanted to improve. Photos I wanted to add. Little details I wanted to polish.

But I actually enjoyed opening it again.

It’s kinda like… finally feeling confident enough to date again after going through a horrible divorce.

You don't suddenly become perfect.
You just stop dreading the experience.

For the first time in years, I actually wanted to write on my own website again.

This is the first proper post I've written in a long time.

Not because I suddenly found new inspiration.
The inspiration never really disappeared.

It was buried underneath years of friction, disappointment, and one decision that quietly convinced me to stop creating.

Funny how something as boring as a CMS can end up changing the course of your creative life.

Anyway... it feels good to be writing and posting again. I’ll try to save and redeem some of the older posts I could save (I lost a LOT of the writing I did) but I’ve got some really old outdated posts I can use.

It’s a good reminder for me to see how much my writing style has changed.

P.S. Oh yeah, one other small thing…

If you’re one of the few people who still reads blogs in 2026 instead of a TikTok or IG video update… thanks. Leaving comments on blogs used to be a thing but now in 2026, it’s definitely dead.

… HOWEVER

Comments may be dead but conversations don’t have to be. If this made you feel like chatting, hit me up!