In my six month absence, there have been several things I have learned. One, of course, is that I missed this blog. I have participated in several revenue sharing sites, such as Xomba, HubPages and Snipsey. Now, I have to admit I have not made a fortune on any of these sites. They are quite restrictive in what you can post and not post. I have freedom to basically post whatever I wish on this blog as long as I stay within the confines of rules set forth by Blogger.com.

When I left this blog, I felt that blogging was on its way out the door. I was wrong about that in some respects. It seems with the advent of iPad and other ereaders, there is more demand for information out there. Blogging itself was stagnant back in 2010. I was getting bored with it all. Plus, I had to deal with some jackasses who whined about what I posted here on my own blog. That is behind me. I would be remiss not to mention the effect that instant micro-blogging sites such as Twitter has damaged the art of the blog. It seems that people think they can make a point with hyphenated words in 140 characters these days. A lot of people seem to think they can. But, I simply disagree (although I do have a Twitter account). But, I do think blogging has seen its heyday. I'm not even sure how long I will continue this blog even though I am back. But, I don't plan on leaving any time soon.

I also learned that one should never ignore warning signs that you body gives you. In late September of 2010, my stomach was sending signals that I should have heeded. As it turns out, I had to have emergency gall bladder surgery. My gall bladder was swollen so large, it nearly burst. It had gotten so big with gangrene, that surgeons had to delicately take it out. That was a learning experience I will never forget. It almost cost me my life. I urge you to never ignore warning signals your body sends to you.

Finally, I learned that getting my novel published was not going to be done the old conventional way. I had hoped to get it published by a big publishing house with the aid of a literary agent. I was delusional to this was going to happen. Now, I am convinced the only way is to go the ebook route. It is the wave of the future. In fact, Amazon stated just a couple of weeks ago that it sold more ebooks than paperback books for the first time. That was an earth shattering moment in the publishing world. Like the dinosaur, the hard copies of books is dead. They just don't know it yet.