Blog Entry

Misty, water-colored memories!

I must say, I am really enjoying reading all of the holiday memory entries that are coming in for this year’s Joyful Noise tour. I really think that the show this year is going to be accented very well by those of you who have chosen to grace us with your wonderful memories. As I read them through though, I want to take a second to clarify a few things with regard to submitting your stories.

1) As much as I appreciate the attempts at well wishes, please know that if you send an email to the submission address just to say hello to me, it doesn’t get through. All of the emails are screened before I get to them, and if they don’t include a story, they are deleted. Suffice it to say, I thank you for your “hello”s and “Merry Christmas”s… but please don’t send them to that address.

2) I am very flattered that a number of you consider some of your fondest holiday memories to include me. That’s incredibly sweet. Yet, as much as I appreciate those stories. I want this tour and the stories that go with it to be about your memories, and not about me. I’m sure some of you will argue the point, but I can’t choose someone to come on stage and read a story that talks about me. I thank you for the sentiment, but I just won’t be picking any of those stories. I wanted to tell you now, so that if you have submitted a “Clay-related” holiday memory you will still have the chance to submit a different one. Please understand and don’t be upset.

3) Please take EXTRA care in HOW you submit your story. In an attempt to make things easier on those of us who are trying to sort and review the submissions… lets make the subject headings UNIFORM… for example….

KALAMAZOO, MI—11/30/2007

Nothing more. Nothing less. The city name.. (NOT THE VENUE NAME.. that makes it more difficult, as we aren’t sorting by venue name, and we don’t have those memorized) and teh date.

“CITY NAME, ST—//2007”

4) If you are coming to more than one show, and you want to have your story considered for each of them… please do a SEPARATE submission for EACH concert you are coming to. if you’re coming to St. Louis and Omaha… label one email “ST. LOUIS, MO - 11/27/2007” and label the other email “OMAHA, NE - 12/21/2007” Please don’t submit a story with more than one city in the heading. If you do, there’s a good chance that it will end up only being sorted into one of those cities. Ewwwww! (if you have already submitted.. PLEASE DON’T resubmit!.. I’ve already gone through the ones that have been sent in and tried my best to sort them. If I see a story come in that I have already read, I’ll just end up deleting it and going with the first submission)

5) Please make sure that you are happy with your story as it is written BEFORE you click on send. It’s unbelieveable how many people have resent their stories with just a little edit here or there. Again, if a story comes in that is the same as a previous entry, I’m just going on and using the first one I got. I feel really badly about this, but in order to be as efficient with time as I can, I can’t reread some stories over and over just because you wanted to add a line. If a story is great and will fit in the show, I can tell.. even if it has mistakes. Typos and misspellings are not going have any bearing on any decisions.

6) I want to be as efficient as possible, so I am going to focus on reading a select few dates for now. For the next week or so, I am going to do everything that I can to read trhough and decide on the winners for the shows up until Kalamazoo, MI. That doesn’t mean that I won’t be reading the other dates, so keep them coming. It simply means that if you wish to submit a story for Wichita, St. Louis, South Bend, Waukegan, or Kalamazoo, you need to do so soon. The deadline for those dates is going to be October 31st. You can submit as many as you like, but if you submit for one of those shows after the 31st, I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to consider it. You could still enter for other shows you may becoming to in December though.

7) Is there something wrong with your “send” button??!? There are SOOO many stories that re being submitted to the same city MULTIPLE times. Once for Wichita, once for St. Louis, once for Red Bank, etc. Send them in once for EACH city please! A separate email for each different story. A separate email for each city.. but only ONCE each please!

8) I am amazed by the number of people that keep saying that they have great stories, but they won’t submit because they have stage fright! I don’t understand! The guidelines CLEARLY state “If you are the author of one of the chosen entries, but you have a bit of stage fright, you can ask a friend to read your story for you!” Clear and simple! On that note.. if you have great stories and you WON’t be attending any concerts. Team up with a friend and submit the stories anyway to a show that your friend will be attending. Then, If your story is chosen, you can simply transfer the opportunity to them.

9) Keep them coming! The more you make me laugh, or make me cry, the better. Some of you guys are really submitting some GREAT stuff. These stories are hopefully going to tie right in to some of the songs that we are performing. I’d love for them to serve as a different type of introduction or segway into some of our songs. As you read them back to yourself, imagine a musical background playing! Make the audience FEEL something. Again, don’t worry if you aren’t the world’s greatest writer. Do your best to paint me a picture of your memory. If you have trouble, find a friend who can help you tell your story….your own personal “Allison Glock”, if you will. Even, if you can’t do your best, and if what you have to say moves me, we’ll help you find a way to word it right!

Okay, I’ll stop there for now. I’m starting to drift back in to teacher mode. I can feel it! Again, I’m really excited about what I’ve been reading so far, and I can’t wait to read some more!

Happy typing!!

c