Is it just me or is everyone gagging for Christmas to be here? With the onset of 'cold season' we definitely need something to celebrate.

I once heard the real birth date of Jesus was October the 29th. Now that would certainly help. But it would leave December a little bleak. I think the problem is that November needs to give us more than Guy Fawkes night to celebrate. I love the idea of Thanksgiving. Maybe we’ll do that? Especially since it comes at the end of the month. Or maybe we’ll celebrate squash season? Or the coming of horizontal rain?

Leopard arrived on Saturday. It wasn’t Christmas (Filemaker doesn’t work properly) but it has some new stuff I love. Like spaces, stackable documents, new stuff in Mail, and Finder. Oh, and Time Machine.

Truth is, if I took a minute to think about it I should realise that the important stuff is more than covered and I'd be shouting JINGLE BELLS every minute of every day. Think there's a song in that.

S.

Today was mixed.

The ‘up’ parts…

• I got the final mixes and song book for our musical (“Lifesong”) emailed through and it sounds fantastic. The children were dancing along to it after lunch and tea. That makes me feel warm inside.
• I finished a lyric idea on the train to London this morning, and
• I finished a major City project. And broke the back of a second one.

The ‘down’ part…

• It looks like the sale of our seaside cottage has fallen through. That sucks. Especially since it’s for all the wrong reasons (a crazy lawyer). I really wanted our buyer to have it… she’s a sweet lady who I know would love living there. But right now it looks impossible. So it’s back to the drawing board.

But the world is still turning. The good stuff outweighed the bad. There must be a purpose in the bad stuff somewhere. I just can’t see it right now. Funny because a number of songs I wrote over the last couple of weeks were about just that. Maybe it's the season for this stuff. Who knows.

S.

P.S. I want an English muffin. And a nice cup of tea. That'll make me feel better.

Whenever I get back from America the days disappear a lot faster. Like someone’s taking 6 hours away from every 24 until I catch on and speed up my act. Crazy that it’s Tuesday already.

Looks like the interview I did with Terry Lindsay in Singing News has been published now. That was fun. When he interviewed me I didn’t realise I had at least one of his books in my bookcase. He’s interviewed many of the great writers in Christian music. I’m humbled.

It’s wonderful being with the family again. While we were having ‘beverages’ in bed this morning with ‘devotions’ the October sun streamed through the room and painted everything golden. It was indeed a golden moment.

I’m at work today. A mixture of serious and fun stuff. I’m always a little careful with myself the first few days back.

S.

10:51 GMT, Felpham, UK.

Got back in record time. So fast that the family are still out at the local swimming pool. The house is quiet, just the faint hum of the fan oven with an autumnal hot pot bubbling away. And it really is Autumn – freezing nights and a chilly sea breeze arrived while I was away. Feels like late October.

I’ll write more once I’ve sorted myself out.

S

Love it when this happens… got bumped up to 1st class Charlotte to London. Kinda feels like someone’s looking after me.

S.

12:30 and I’ve just got to my hotel room in Nashville after the 6 hour drive down from WAJ in St Louis. Can’t believe how quickly these last two weeks have gone. Especially WAJ, which was crazy busy but real fun. This year was the best.

Now the trip is nearly over I’ve those familiar mixed emotions – desperate to see Sandra and the children (I just can’t wait) but sad to be saying goodbye to my friends and the wonderful community here.

10 highlights over the last two weeks:

1. Renting my car for $16/day
   
2. Hanging with Ross, J’s and WP’s, meeting Nic and hanging with Julie and Dave
3. 15 new songs, some of my best work yet, more artist cowrites
   
4. Signing the papers for our new Nashville home
5. iSighting the Beach House for hours on end... seeing Barty smile at me on video for the first time... Poppy holding a piece of paper up to the camera that she’d written on “Dear God, please make Daddy come home quickly because I am really missing him”. She knows how to press my buttons.
6. Meeting Belinda’s mum
7. The warm welcome everyone at WAJ gave this funny old British dude who keeps turning up year after year. And gatecrashing my room mate's space. Thanks Daniel.
   
8. The Friday night concert… just amazing, always a highlight of my year
9. Seeing beautiful, sweet little Violet snuggled up in the middle of all the activities going on at WAJ
10. Travelling up and down to St Louis with James T and hearing him practice his ‘core blimey cockney’ accent

Off to the airport in the morning. Just downloaded some episodes of Grey’s Anatomy Season 4 to watch on my iPod. I wish we had all that stuff on the UK iTunes store.

Thanks to everyone who made this trip so much fun and so productive,

S.

Big day today:

1. I bought our ‘Nashville house’. Actually it’s a condo. Well, actually, right now, it’s a pile of earth, a bunch of promises and a large bill (check). But in 6-8 months time it should be a new made-to-measure 2 bedroom little home for me when I come to write and for the family when we all come over on holiday. Poppy suggested that next time when I come over to work they all come over. That wouldn’t work at the Homestead Suites. It will in McKay’s Mill. So I’m excited about that.
2. I wrote with a new Word artist called Francesca Battistelli. My chum Ian is producing most of her new album and I can tell already she’s going to be huge. 22 and the voice of Christine Aguilera. I told Sue, she could probably sing ‘Bah bah black sheep’ and it would sound cool. We wrote an idea I’d been wanting to write for a long time called ‘See You in the Spaces’. I don’t know if it will make the album but the fact that she went out of the room wanting to write again was enough. Thanks Francesca.
3. I wrote with Belinda tonight… she’s so funny. We covered a lot of ground: the WAJ questionnaire, Italian men’s personal hygiene, the problem with the French (all of them), Pete’s dog door, a new badge scheme for Nashville songwriters, preparing for the live cowrite at WAJ, her Mum, succession planning for dogs, my family, our holiday, illnesses etc etc. We laughed a lot. But the song we wrote ('Stay') was actually very serious and a little sad.

Tomorrow morning I’ve Daniel K. Then Mike Payne in the afternoon. I wanted to write into the night at BBMP after Belinda left to visit a friend in hospital but I just couldn’t… I need an early night.

S.

P.S. Thanks a lot for lunch Nicole. It was great to meet you. I’m toasting your 1st class round the world trip with my hot chocolate. I guarantee you won't regret it. Really.

Nine songs up, half way through and still going strong. Having turned in the five songs from the musical I feel like I’ve made a serious dent on my quota over the last few days.

It’s been an interesting time tho. Some things I've noticed from this trip so far:

• Developing ideas together - When going into a cowrite I generally take a stack of ideas but nine times out of ten we end up writing something quite different. Again it looks like when I fly back at the end of this trip my idea bank will be larger than when I arrived.
• Ideas of the moment - It's funny how there are certain ideas ‘of the moment’… like, after I finished a song called ‘You Know’ on Thursday afternoon within five minutes of cowriting on Friday my cowriter turned to me and asked if we could write a song with exactly the same title. How does that work?!
• Getting in the flow – The aggressive timetable of this trip has been interesting. I was initially a little nervous going into my third cowrite of the day, wondering if I could still give my best after having had two others. Reality has been different... the afternoon and evening sessions have actually gone better than the mornings. In fact, the song I finished writing with Lee Black at 10.30 last night is one of the coolest country songs I’ve ever written.
• SongTools – I’ve been trying to use it less in my writing because I'm aware it could end up being a crutch... like dashing for a rhyming dictionary for every line. I'm getting more and more comfortable about when I need to use it and as a result during this trip it’s come up with some stunning ideas.
  
• Turning stuff in – it’s been fun this trip to have the sister program to SongTools fully up and running. It’s called SongData and it keeps track of all my ideas, my catalogue and it automates turning songs in. It’s been fun to get the worktape down and turned in within minutes of a song being finished.
  
• Being flexible – every writer has a different approach to writing but I'm always surprised at how different the approaches are. I were ever to impose my approach in a cowrite I'm sure it would be its kiss of death. There have been times this week when we started at A and finished with Z but there have been times when we've written almost every part of the song in parallel. It just goes to show how there are no hard and fast rules here… you just have to go with whatever works at the time.
• Rolling with the timetable – when there have been gaps or double bookings in the schedule they have all somehow worked out. Even to the extent that I've run into people I need to reschedule with at a restaurant. It’s so easy to get stressed trying to make a trip from out of town 'work' but this trip has shown that the more laid back I’ve been the busier it has got.
• Pace of change - seems like things are moving quicker than ever in the music business... a shift towards artists, their audience and connecting them with great songs. Feels like the majors are still scratching their heads wondering what to do. There's a lot to play out but it feels like it's even more important to keep focusing on the craft, relationships and just writing the best songs I can.
  

Can't believe that this time next week WAJ will be drawing to a close.

S.

Been a great start… two songs turned in, two songs mostly done.

My days in Nashville have taken on an extra zone…

• EARLY MORNING – 4am-9am
• Sensible  morning – 9am-noon
• Afternoon – Noon-5ish
• Evening – 5ish to as long as I last

I like waking up early… gives me a chance to prepare for the day when the world around me have their brains switched off. The downside is that I crash at about 8ish and just have to get to bed before critical systems start to shut down.

Yesterday my early morning slot was taken up with a Fellowship Bible Church seminar called ‘A Journey Toward Authentic Manhood’. I can’t type that without smiling (that title would not work in Britain). If I hadn’t experienced the excellence with which FBC approaches everything I wouldn’t have gone. Especially since it involved actually going outside and getting into the car at 5.45am. But it was really great and I’m looking forward to the rest of the programme.

Later I headed down town to write at Universal’s writing rooms off Music Row to write with my chum James Tealy in the morning and in the afternoon two other talented writers joined us... my first ever 4-way cowrite. With so many ideas being bounced around the room it was incredible so see how the song just emerged in front of us. I’d love to do that again.

Managed to hook up with one of Universal’s main song pluggers down there who is looking for ways to hook me up with his counterparts in London. It’s tough at the moment because Universal’s takeover of BMG has thrown a lot of things in the air and although things are reasonably settled here in Nashville it’s a totally different story in London… carnage and chaos.

Today marks the start of the 3-cowrites-a-day phase of my trip… some great writers lined up.  I’m hoping Belinda doesn't catch me micro-sleeping. Alpha brain waves are where we're most creative anyway.

S.

I'm here. Took 21 hours. That's actually a good time. Picked up a small car for $16 a day from www.priceline.com (thanks Sue). It's a reaction to the bus we hired last time. It's perfectly fine. But going into Wild Oats wasn't... I was looking for Poppy running up and down trying on every pair of crocks on the rack. I'm hoping it gets better after going into these places for the first time. Or maybe in daylight. Fingers crossed.

Better get some sleep,

S.

I’m sat at my favourite spot in Gatwick – a tucked away Starbucks in the depths of the south terminal - and I've just had breakfast. Going to Nashville this time feels different... more relaxing. I've been thinking...

• Maybe it’s something to do with not having three small children to herd through an international airport?
• Maybe it’s because I’m travelling a route that I’m familiar with (i.e. NOT via Atlanta)?
• Maybe, having had the family come over, Nashville feels more like home than it did before?
  

Whatever it is I’m glad because ahead of me is possibly my most aggressive writing schedule yet… loads of new cowriters, some staff writers, artists and worship leaders. And then there's a real treat at the end… WAJ where I’ll get to meet loads of old and new chums. I can’t wait.

I'm sure it's worth being stuck in a metal tube filled with various second hand bodily gasses. Better focus on my skinny latte.

S.

Wanna find the next Norah Jones? Well you need THESE PEOPLE - they claim to be behind Norah’s success in taking ‘Come Away With Me’ to infinity and beyond. They’re a Spanish company that use logical algorithms to tell record companies (some very big ones) if a song's going to be a smash hit or not.
 
Their approach is to:

• Break songs down into 69 attributes
• Map these attributes against other hits
• Group songs into clusters within the overall universe of songs (hits and misses)
  
• Say if a song is going to be a monster hit by seeing if it falls into the same cluster as other monster hits. 
  

I have great difficulty with this.

The trouble is... there wasn’t anyone quite like Norah Jones before her first album. That's why we liked it... it was fresh. The same thing with Coldplay, Keane and other trailblazers. How do they account for edge of table acts like that who lead the rest of the industry into new territory? How do they also measure ‘vibe’ and ‘cool’? Like, who would have thought that crazy frog would make it to number 1? And how to they measure the power of a gut-wrenching lyric? Then there's the whole issue of mainstream music being all about sex.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of using technology in art (that's why I made SongTools). But for me it can't go much further than providing more choices. The artist then puts an expanded set of elements together to connect human beings in a unique and wonderful way. Computers can try to do that but human beings do it better than any artificial intellegence. And that's because... er... we're human.

So before we get deluged with more Kraftwerk, my message to Mr Paellabelly is to congratulate him on a great sales line but surely the credit for Ms Jones’ success must go to someone else… the artsy A&R man to put his neck on the line to give the world something different. 

S.

Earlier today Poppy and Monty went to Grandma’s house for tea.

The children were just finished eating.

Poppy: Grandma?
Grandma: Yes Sweetheart
Poppy: Can I have something to eat that’s bad for me now?
Grandma: <pause> how about some ice cream?
Monty: YES PLEASE. And can I have three sweeties on the top?

I think they’ve got this Grandma thing worked out.

S.

It’s been a good week at the office:

1. I found out that Livin’ In The Rain has made the long list for the grammy’s. It’s not grammy nominated (at least not yet) but I guess it’s nominated for a nomination. The fact that it s number 2 in the SG chart had already made my year. But this…
2. I finished my first ever musical. Despite totally losing my voice last week when I needed to start recording work tapes I enjoyed every minute of it. There are some wonderful songs in there that have been on constant replay in my iBrain for the last few days. Thank you Sue for letting me in on it.
3. I’ve finished two major project for the City today. These have involved a lot of work and several trips up to London to connect with the right people. But the results are great. I’ve even got a City hook up on iChat video later today. That's a first. So does this mean I could do this from Nashville?!
4. I’ve got going on my next Berklee Music School course… I hadn’t realised how much I had missed the connection with the team there and my fellow students. It’s so cool to be able to talk with like-minded people around the world and the course itself so far is proving to be one of the best yet.

Looking forward to my trip to Nashville next week. It looks like a busy time already with several new writers including a new Word artist. That should be fun. 

S.