I wish I was at Estes. I know it has its faults. I know that I (along with many others) took the competition far too seriously. I even managed to extract from one GMA staff member the #entries per category to increase my chances. And it worked. I know on the artist side that ‘American Idol’ has kinda created a model it’s difficult to break away from. But I still miss being there.

Stuff like:

• The smell of the mountains on the drive up from Denver
• Arriving in the dark, breathless as I unpack the car
• The chill in the air first thing in the morning
• Grabbing a Starbucks on my way to the Y
• Meeting up again with so many chums I’ve got to know over the years
• Sitting on a big wooden chair video conferencing home using what must surely be the highest wireless network on the planet (8,000 ft)
• Sitting in on every single CCM competition critique - golden
• Watching the kids programme and imagining how I can bring Sa, Poppy and Moo over
• Taking an afternoon off to drive above the tree line and seeing the tops of mountains to the edge of the horizon
• The feeling of “not-expecting-but-somehow-really-really-really-hoping” my name is on the list for the semis
• The WAJ lunch
  
• The sense of expectation before the evening concerts
• Slipping away at half time to grab a hot chocolate before the café in the lodge closes
• The feeling of destiny gazing at the starscape on the way back
• The lure of my bed during Café Estes but still not being able to tear myself away

Yours thinking I’m glad I feel this way because I guess I must have enjoyed the journey so far,

S.

P.S. If you want to play the numbers game here’s the distribution by category I jotted down in my little black book a year or two ago:

Category           #Entries     Share
Pop/AC                  395        52%
Rock/Alt                130         17%
SG/Country             55           7%
Gospel/Urban/HH   49           6%
P&W                     129          17%

1. It was technically possible so I just had to do it (like converting DVDs onto my iPod)
2. I'm redeveloping SongTools using some new software and I need a windows version for stress testing the Mac version
3. Some software vendors were going to charge me an arm and a leg to cross-grade, so for $50 I can get one over on them AND save money

I was up at 5.30am to go to London. It was sweltering. As I walked out of Starbucks in Oxford Street at 8.30 all I could smell was deodorant and shower gel.

My meeting went well until I caught myself micro-sleeping just before lunch!

I came home via the US Embassy to hand in some papers to the IRS. I think I’ve finally cracked this whole US tax thing at last.

As soon as I got home I swapped my pinstripes for my swimming trunks and jumped into the sea. It was glorious. Right now it’s as warm as a heated swimming pool. I’d been thinking about it all day. Somehow, sitting in the back of a black cab in the heat of the day is a lot more bearable knowing that the sea is waiting for me back home.

We’ve actually got a swimming pool in our garage ready to take to the French house. I’m tempted to put it up in our back garden. You know, just to try it out. Why not?

But tonight I’m smiling about something else. Looks like the cut Twila and I have on Jeff & Sheri Easter's CD will be sung by Vince Gill...

http://www.jeffandsherieaster.com/news.shtml

For the English readers of my blog, Vince Gill is like a country version of Robbie Williams (17 grammies etc).

Big smile.

Yours not looking forward to another London trip tomorrow,

S.

9.30 Monday morning. Just got home. The house is quiet cause everyone's out at work/school. Sa left a sweet note for me – we’re celebrating tonight. We always do when I get back from a trip. But this will be a little special. It's an amazing, hot, clear summer day here. The sea is looking very welcoming and I might go in later. I always used to do that when I got back from Estes.

Today’s going to be a mixture of unpacking (which I’m determined to get out of the way quickly), paperwork (I noticed a mountain has appeared on my desk) and following up on stuff from last week. I also need to prepare for a couple of trips to London tomorrow and Wednesday.

I’m picking up the children from school today. Can’t wait to see them. 

I wonder if I’ll be able to keep my eyes open until bedtime? I didn’t sleep that well on the plane this time, although in many other ways it was a good journey. A little late getting in to Charlotte. But that was ok. I managed to get through the remaining episodes of 'Over There' from my box set. Even got organised to watch one on my iPod.

I better get going before I nod off.

Yours missing my Nashville friends,

S.

Sitting in my suite thinking I need to start packing. It was a very late night last night.

Yesterday morning I met up with Sue at Starbucks and filled up with a large latté before going to write at BBMP. Normally it would be pretty rubbish going into an office block on a Saturday morning but going into BBMP is very different. Yesterday I just felt excited about the song we were writing. I’d spent some time Friday night pulling some musical ideas together in ‘Tony’s room’. I’d finally settled on something higher risk but when I listened to it with fresh ears yesterday I loved it. So we made some tweaks in the lyric, finished the bridge, said our cherios and she headed out.

Next I had to visit my new bank to sort out online banking before a late breakfast with Ross at Cracker Barrel. I love hanging out with Ross. We normally have an unofficial debrief on my writing trip the day before I leave. It’s just such fun. He told me about a great idea he had for new ice creams and demonstrated an impressive knowledge of chemistry. I’m going to try it when I get home.

After a little more shopping I headed off to Holly and Guy’s. We chatted for a while and then Guy and I headed off up north to a kids camp about 4 hours away to hear a band he was A&Ring. They were young, committed and impressive. The camp reminded me so much of camps I went on when I was that age – I would have jumped at the chance of doing what I’m doing now. It was a privilege to meet them and their manager. I also learnt a new guitar tuning that I’m itching to try out when I get home. I’ll have to wait until then because it involves hacking a capo around. I’m looking forward to that.

Guy drove all the way on the return journey (thanks Guy) and I got back to my room at about 2.30 a.m. thinking what a cool day it was. Days like that don’t happen to me in Felpham.

So now I’m getting ready to go home with 9 new songs, some more ideas, some presents for Sandra, Poppy and Moo and a publishing deal. I can’t wait to show them the pics.

Yours feeling so grateful to be doing this stuff,

S.

Yeah, today was a big day…

After having...

• Quit the City
• Moved the family to the South Coast of England
• Built a studio and writing room in our old seaside cottage
• Spent a lifetime getting to grips with technology
• Travelled on I-don’t-know-how-many planes
• Taken I’ve-lost-count-of-how-many courses at Berklee Music School
• Spent a frightening amount of time developing SongTools
• Written a mountain of sucky songs
• Had too many song critiques for my blood pressure
• Done GMA Weeks, Estes Park Weeks, Write About Jesus weekends and who knows how many Nashville trips
• Made friends with some amazingly talented and fun people along the way
• Built up a catalogue of cowritten songs that I’d never have believed possible, and
• Drawn heavily on the unending support of my family

... I got signed.

I was telling Sue, Holly and Gina tonight over dinner – this has been a dream of mine since I was 10 years old. Right now I feel the journey, which started such a long time before I even started in the City, has been so worthwhile. In reality I had no choice, I just had to do it. Or at least give it my best shot.

Thanks to Sue (I’m so grateful for everything), Holly, Marty, Ross and everyone else at Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing (part of BMG). And congrats to Gina.

And thanks to Sa. Really. You are amazing.

Yours knowing I still have so much left to learn,

S.

Here's a pic of: (front), Sue, Gina, and Simon, (back) BBMP Creative Director Holly Zabka, BBMP Vice President of Publishing Marty Wheeler, BBMP President Dale Mathews, and BBMP Creative Director Ross Asher.

Been a busy couple of days… 4 songs up. Nice.

Got a big day tomorrow. I need some sleep.

Yours trying to fight off early evening jet lag,

S.

I’m on US1119 from Charlotte to Nashville in a 737-400. At least that’s what the safety instruction card says. After 8 hours sitting next to the toilet I asked for a seat up front for this leg of the journey. I won’t say why, because it would probably gross you out.

But apart from that it’s been a good trip so far. Great in fact. I decided to travel light this time – three pieces instead of four. With the emphasis on writing over worktaping I decided to leave my 88-note keyboard at the studio and bring a small two-octave controller keyboard instead. And there’s a bag full of stuff I’ve left behind because my MacBook has a mic and a sound system built in. Nice.

I’m also using a new ‘drag bag’ which makes moving (or rolling) my stuff around a total pleasure. I’ve got very firm views on bags with rollers on them. I realise I’m sad and sounding a little mad and I probably had a slightly mad look on my face playing with it as I Skyped Sa from a rocking chair in the terminal building at Charlotte airport. But it’s even got big rollerblade wheels. I can almost take off on my own with my drag bag.

But I'm very excited about this week... it's going to be fun. I’m writing with Kevin Stokes, John Cox, Gina Boe, Joel Lindsey, James Tealey, Michael Puryear, Sue Smith and Caleb Collins. What an amazing four days to look forward to. No doubt Nashville’s stretchy time will play games with the schedule as always but it will be great to get there and get writing.

Yours looking forward to getting into bed tonight,

S.

One of the downsides of living in England as a songwriter is that no one really understands anything about what I do. Especially how ‘making up songs’ really works. It’s not actually reasonable to expect them to understand. It’s like trying to explain a local craft like cricket bat making to an American. Why SHOULD they understand?

But I’ve a long way to go. I mention song writing to my bank manager and he shivers. One dear member of our family asked me about my up coming trip to Nashville yesterday and said – “So are you going to ‘spew forth’ songs all day next week?”. Not quite the way I’d put it but I appreciate the interest!

We always thought my brother was misunderstood as a child. He’s an excellent communicator now. In fact, he makes a great living out of it. He gives me hope.

Yours feeling like our family is being attacked on a few fronts at the moment,

S.

PS Happy Birthday Keith!

I’ve played and sung in some extraordinary places in the past but this weekend I notched up another all-time first… I played electric guitar for a Roman Catholic mass on a military base. No, this wasn’t the main gig of the weekend – that was to celebrate the first mass of Sandra’s Godchild, Charlie Depla. It was all going well until Moo ate through his entire supply of raisins (several boxes) and I had to take him out screaming. He made more noise than the electric guitar. But it was fun and thanks to Cari and Stig for letting me loose in public with a real 'axe'... I enjoyed it. And thanks for a great weekend at your wonderful home.

Over the last week or so I’ve been working on two new ideas prompted by my studies at Berklee Music School and my time with Pat Pattison a few months ago: creating a set of lyric development strategies and a bunch of song and production templates. After so many years of obsessively listening to and analysing songs it's humbling that there’s so much I still need to learn from stuff that’s just out there on iTunes.

Yours wondering how I would apply a ‘three generation story song’ strategy and a ‘rock’ production template if I were sitting in Graham Kendrick’s writing room when he wrote ‘Shine Jesus Shine’,

S.

P.S. Congrats Charlie.

OK, I admit it I’m enjoying my MacBook so much more than I ever thought I would. Part of it is just the fun of discovering a new OS. But I can do so much more than could do on my Vaio. Here’s the top 10 things I love about it so far:

1. iChat. It’s changed my life
2. It's just simple and cool to use
3. GarageBand. I use it as my song idea notepad. And I don’t even need to plug in a mic
4. It takes about half a second to boot up in standby mode
5. I don’t need to plug it in to a hifi to play back audio
6. A little gadget the size of an iPod shuffle gives me 120 TV channels that I can record on DVDR or send to my iPod video. I’ve also got some freeware that converts DVDs to iPod format
7. The way I can search on ANYTHING in my address book
8. I’ve found a way to make SongTools work on Excel for Mac
9. No viruses
10. I’ve this cool program called Parallels that runs Windows XP in a separate window at the same time as OS X. So if I really miss norton antivirus I can still run it
    

Yours looking forward to coming to Nashville without having to pack a load of spaghetti just to record a worktape,

S.

The TV weather people said it would be hot and in London yesterday it really was. Especially sitting in a black cab in a black pin stripe suit. My meetings were half good, half bad. The good ones went very well and made the trip worthwhile. The bad ones just didn’t happen at all.

The weather in Britain is really going crazy at the moment. Right now (early Wednesday morning) it’s hot and tropical outside. High humidity, a thunderstorm with BIG RAIN, and the sea is looking like it did on our honeymoon in Penang, Malaysia. Warm, gentle, turquoise and inviting. I don’t remember it ever being like this before.

The British are not made for weather like this. One of my chums yesterday (he's Australian) commented that we Brits complain when it’s cold and complain when it’s hot. He’s got a point. But if global warming really is changing the balance of the weather maybe it means global emigration to more natural climates?

I was on the train home from London yesterday afternoon when I got a call from Sandra to say that Moo had been taken to hospital in an ambulance. Something heat related. She sounded calm on the phone so I thought he’d probably be ok.

I was able to divert my journey to Chichester (the train I was on just happened to be going there) and after about an hour I was with Sa and Moo in A&E. He seemed a little subdued but actually on fine form. He was being kept in overnight for observation. But once he started blowing kisses to the nurses they suggested he’d probably be ok to come home.

We thank God that there’s no lasting damage. We’re hoping Sa’s time in court this morning will be brief. Prosecuting someone when your child is sick somehow makes stupid behaviour a little more stupid.

Yours grateful to be able to work in shorts,

S.

Tomorrow I’m up in London all day on business. I wont be back for bath time so I decided to come home early today for a family swim in the sea. As we got in the water slowly (yeah, it seemed to have got a little cooler today) Poppy said ‘Daddy, this is the biggest piece of water I’ve ever seen!’. She’s still coming out with those classics. Long may it continue.

The sea is weird at the moment. Just down the coast, outside the Lobster Pot Café, there’s an unusually large build up of sea weed and it’s starting to stink! Glad it chose that area. Normally it gets like that at the end of Spring or beginning of winter. We must do something about this climate change thing. If only to stop the build up of pongy manky stuff happening in Felpham!

Yours still smelling it somewhere at the back of my throat,

S.

It’s been a wonderful weekend in many ways… incredible weather, both sets of parents came round to celebrate Moo's birthday. And some of his cousins. We bounced on the trampoline, played ball in the sunshine, watched world cup soccer (OK, that wasn’t so great), swam in the cool turquoise sea and in our hot family paddling pool, celebrated some more, watched an amazing summer firework display along the beach and enjoyed hearing the sea lapping gently as we fell asleep.

But tonight, as I was quietly tapping away at my computer in bed, Sandra switched off the TV as she could tell I was unusually upset. She moved over to read the WAJ bulletin board item I was looking at and she welled up too. One of my friends in the WAJ family is going through something I just cannot begin to understand.

We prayed but otherwise we were speechless. I know others in the WAJ family are feeling the same way right now.

Yours thanking God for the good stuff but so wishing the bad stuff would just go away,

S.