By Andrew Ellis, Editor-in-Chief

Sarah Morris had the bug. Not the songwriting bug that has resulted her successful career, but a nasty bug. The kind that keeps you indoors and where you gradually make a blanket of dirty Kleenex.

It was also the week of the songwriter challenge. This time the song had to be written by the end of the week. And normally that can be done, but Morris’ sickness gave her an extra obstacle—writing a song while sick.

“Our prompt that week was ‘light/heavy,’” she says. “So I was on a walk and the first verse just came to me and I just kept tugging at the thread.”

She called the song “Helium” and her main inspiration came from her husband and her kids during that time she was sick. Her being ill had put a damper on her spirit, but they stepped in.

“I thought about how grateful I am to have these wonderful people around me to bring some light when I don’t have a whole lot of my own,” she says.