COEUR d'ALENE - Charisa Faith sings because it is something she was born to do.

"It's in the depth of who I am," she said. "I think I could say the same for writing because I'm a songwriter. My goal with the songwriting and the singing is to put words to the very emotions that we as humans aren't very good at communicating."

The auburn-haired, brown-eyed, 21-year-old Coeur d'Alene musician just released her first video for her song, "Gone," at the end of September. It was a momentous time in her life - flying to L.A. to record the music with a grammy-winning producer and traveling to Nashville to shoot a professional music video.

"It's very, very exciting," she said. "I don't know how else to describe it."

"Gone" is a breakup song, a smooth, velvety, smoky number where Faith expresses the pain of separating with a childhood sweetheart.

"We didn't want it to be the stereotypical just showing a scenario where a guy leaves a girl and she's angry about it, so that's why we built the story around it," she said. "It plays the story in reverse."

The video portrays the emotion felt as the young lovers go their own ways.

"In the beginning it shows him leaving and you're like, 'Well, what made him leave? What's going on here?' Then it shows how they met in the very beginning," Faith said. "The young girl ended up giving the boy the magnifying glass to show her affection toward him and over the years, their relationship developed. That's why it was so much more shocking when he left because they had known each other so long."

Don't worry, she didn't have to suffer the heartbreak to write a song with which she knows many can relate.

"I was playing along in my room and I had the chord progression and the lyrics kind of just came to me," she said. "I feel like a lot of times, that's the way that songs are written. A lot of artists will talk about how they felt, that it was almost divinely inspired because the words, they wrote themselves."

This is just the beginning of Faith's career in the world of entertainment. Her producer is marketing her music for movies, commercials and other big-time jobs in L.A. and, even though she has been singing her whole life, she recently took her first professional vocal lesson to stretch her abilities and better train her singing voice.

Faith's style is similar to British singer-songwriter Adele with influences such as John Mayer, Sara Bareilles, Mumford and Sons and the Civil Wars.

"Even I'm still figuring out the ins and outs of it because I think that I have a pretty unique taste and a unique sound," she said. "Mostly I'd say that I contribute it to Adele, it's a very Adele style, then it meanders in more of like a folk region, and then I like to pick up on influence."

Along with her music, Faith is a general studies student at North Idaho College and has been active in the local musical theater scene for several years.

"If you're in a play, that's your whole life," she said. "When you get bit by the theater bug, there's no going back."

Faith's short-term goals include playing local venues, building a following and to continue acting and singing in local productions. Long-term, she desires a fanbase, signing a label contract and following the road to stardom.

"I feel like I've been given a gift to at least articulate and put things into words," she said. "My goal in that is to bring people freedom through them being able to listen to a song and be like, 'That is exactly what I'm going through,' you know, they can resonate with that."

"Gone" can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=-foezTOdA2E as well as www.reverbnation.com/charisafaith, where fans can also view photos, hear more of her songs and read her artist's bio.