Atlantis

So last week Ellie Goulding released a new CD titled "Halcyon." It is an amazing CD and I think that everyone should give it a listen. It is filled with atmospheric vocals and ethereal sounds. There is definitely something for everyone.

I mention this because a highlight on that album is "Atlantis." You don't know this about me (however you will soon in about 4 seconds), but I have a miniature obsession with Atlantis.

Okay, a huge one.

Ever since I was young I have always imagined Atlantis existing, dreaming up wonderful dreams of a land below the waters where technology prospered and nature thrived in unique and strange ways.

But lately I have forgotten that. My mind delved into strange places that, although were interesting and something I enjoyed, they never seemed to give me the same excitement that I had had with Atlantis. It was as though my youth had been outgrown; by physiology this is certainly true, but to an extent an author never really grows up in the mind.

Upon hearing Ellie Goulding singing in such a high (almost indecipherable) voice, it is both evoking and beautiful.The words don't matter. It is the atmosphere the song creates, the beautiful build-up to the few lines that most everyone can understand: "where'd you go?"

And then it hit me: where did my youth go?

And then I realized it lay with the subject of the song: Atlantis.

It seems as though my creativity had been revived, simply by hearing this song. Sure, there were moments in the past few years where I was very happy with what I had written. There were characters that I loved to hate and hated to love, paragraphs and sentences that put a tear in my eye. But those times were far and few between, not like when I was in grade school when I would come home and immediately hop onto the computer to write everything I had thought about during the day: dragons and crystal caves, darkness and light, swords and shields. My mind was firing on all cylinders, incapable of being stopped unless physically forced from the computer chair.

Those moments are rare today. And it depresses me. I love writing. I love it with all of my heart. It brings me joy in days such as these when I can forget the world and go into my own that I created. But it's harder to find time like I used to. It's harder to imagine a new world when reality and its hassles has too much of a pull.

Atlantis has excited me much like it had when I was young. That doesn't mean that everything I write from now one will be about Atlantis. That would be strange, because I certainly do have other ideas that in no way could work there. But the song (and the following thoughts I had while listening to it) seemed to have re-energize my creativity in a way that I have not experienced in a long time.

So thank you, Ellie Goulding. I owe you the world.

My world.