She's still not talking, but Adele took part in a revealing email interview with Billboard in which she discussed the massive success of her album '21,' how she stays grounded, and how she felt "miserable" for part of the past year even while her album sales soared.

The interview appears in the new issue of Billboard, which declared Adele its Artist of the Year for 2011. The need for email was necessitated by Adele's recent vocal cord surgery, which she said "couldn't have gone better."

While '21' is pushing 5 million in U.S. sales alone, Adele said the breakup she sings about on the record was still haunting her for much of the year. "Not having someone to share all this with made me miserable at times, to be honest," she said. "I wanted nothing more than to be in love and be loved back. That was until I remembered I was sharing it with millions and millions and millions of people!! I haven't been ready to be in love again since summer 2009... until now."

Adele revealed a sense of perspective when she said, "When it comes to staying myself -- my career isn't my life, it doesn't come home with me." She added that some of her self-confidence came from watching Amy Winehouse: "I'd rather trust myself, to like what I've done and stick to my guns than make music I don't like, wear clothes that don't suit me and flutter between genres because I'm scared I won't be relevant if I pass my 'sell by' date. Amy tattooed that in me!"

When will Adele be ready to sing again? "Because I was singing with damaged vocal chords for three or four months and because of the surgery and because of the silence after the surgery, I now have to build myself back up vocally," the singer explained. "It's gonna be a lot easier for me to sing now. And mentally I won't be worried about my voice on stage anymore. So I have to get used to that. That'll take most of January, so February I'll be singing properly!"

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