"I need to sort my life out,"says Ellie Goulding with a sigh, fiddling with her bright blonde hair as she talks. "And if I don't do it soon, I may as well just be forever on the road, because that's what it feels like."

Curled up in the corner of a black leather couch in her modest dressing room backstage at a Washington, D.C., venue, Goulding describes her next six months as if she's been asked to run endless wind sprints. (Although, as it turns out, that might make this fitness addict happier.) This is what you dream of when you imagine being a pop star: hit singles, a world tour, award show performances, screaming fans.

But the reality is not exactly a dream. It's work, and a long string of empty dressing rooms like this one that tend to look the same whether you're in North America, where Goulding will be until May, or Australia, New Zealand and Asia, where she'll travel to immediately after. Some stars favor drink or drugs to combat the boredom. Goulding, a self-professed "shy geek," brings books. (Latest faves: Laurent Binet's historical fiction novel"HHhH"and Eckhart Tolle's self-help best-seller"A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose.")

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She runs her fingers through her hair again, and the silver sparkles on her gold nail polish catch the light. It's a mixture of awkwardness and disco glamour that pretty much define the 27-year-old U.K. singer. "As much as I love what I do, and music is obviously everything to me, I'm being pulled home, and I've got to do that soon, I think," she says. But in the United States, Goulding's career has been building slowly to this point, and it's too late to stop now. A little less than three years after she performed a selection of understated songs at the April 29, 2011 wedding reception of Prince William and Kate Middleton, Goulding has transitioned from an acoustic-leaning pop songwriter to an electro-dance siren.

Her debut album,"Lights," was released stateside throughCherrytree/Interscope in March 2011, a year after its U.K. bow. It took more than another year to connect, when the sixth single the ethereal title track became a surprise summer hit, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in its 33rd week on the chart in August 2012. That was just two months before the release of her second album,"Halcyon," which has spawned a growing collection of radio hits, as well as tour after tour and music video after music video, each one designed to feed the other.

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Onstage, Goulding displays the same mix of goofy and glam that she does in conversation. Her dazzling live show is dominated by uptempo dance tracks. She speaks to the audience in a warm, upbeat tone, and she's visually magnetic, constantly in motion. Some moments she gyrates with sexual abandon, while in others she busts out a running man. Goulding says that she gets lost in her dancing, which is equal parts geeky and joyful. "When I'm onstage, I'm like a monster," she says with a laugh.

To stay in shape for the stage, Goulding exercises religiously. (In 2011, she teamed up with Nike for a short film about training for a half marathon "I'm a runner. I've got no choice but to keep running, and I can't stop," she says in the movie, which sounds oddly like her current tour schedule.) At home she does boxing and gymnastics, along with running. But on tour she uses the"Insanity"video, sometimes in a hotel room (if it's big enough to run drills in she describes it as "boot camp kind of stuff, with lots of squatting"), or at a venue if she's working out with other tour members. "I feel like people associate keeping fit with something negative, but with these fun gyms, you don't even realize that you're working out," says Goulding, mentioning a free-running parkour gym she likes in Los Angeles.

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Ellie Goulding Aches For Downtime: 'I Need To Sort My Life Out'