Writing and Music: a Not-So-Odd Coupling
By Keith Cronin | February 16, 2024 |
As some of you may already know, in addition to being a highly sought-after shirtless model for romance novel covers, I am also a longtime professional musician, having earned my first money for playing drums at the ripe old age of 14. In fact, music was my fulltime profession until my late 30s. And I didn’t start seriously writing fiction (inasmuch as anything I write could be considered “serious”) until I turned 40. (So you might say that as a writer, I was a 40-year-old virgin. But I digress…)
Coming into a new-to-me art form with a lengthy background in another, I’ve been repeatedly struck by how many parallels I’ve encountered between the two creative paths. It has also been interesting to note the very different experience of learning one art form as a child, and learning another as an adult (inasmuch as a person like me could ever be considered an “adult”).
But I’ll leave the exploration of the whole young-versus-old-artist rabbit hole for some other day. Today, I want to explore five similarities I’ve found in pursuing two art forms – writing and music – at the professional level. I’ll start with the one I think is most important:
1. It’s a business.
Thus far I’ve been calling them art forms, but when you start actively seeking a paying audience for your work – whether written or musical – you quickly become aware that you are dealing with a business, which brings with it numerous rules, obstacles and rites of passage, many of which are not clearly stated or even openly acknowledged. Yeah, it’s fun like that. Trust me: You’re gonna want to wear a helmet.
In each case, because it’s a business, many decisions that will affect your success are A) based on money, and B) out of your hands.
As a musician, this could come down to who is willing to hire you, or to pay to see you perform, or to publish your music (an area that used to be where the money was in songwriting), or to finance your recording and/or tour, or to buy your recordings. Bottom line: It’s about who will spend their money on this thing you chose to do. As the artist, all you can do is make whatever product or service you’re offering as appealing – and as competitive in terms of financial value – as possible.
Writers are in a similar position. Whether you’re pursuing the traditional publishing route, or self-publishing, or trying to get a piece of your dramatic work produced either on stage or screen, somebody else has to decide that what you’re doing (or promising to do) is worth their money.
In both cases, as an artist, you are free to express yourself in any way you see fit. But as an artist who wants to be paid for that art, it quickly becomes obvious that some pathways lead a bit more directly to potential revenue generation than others. Hence my next observation:
2. Genre matters.
For example, a thrilling 70,000-word whodunit with a strong, confident protagonist stands a better chance of selling some copies than a 600-page second-person diatribe exploring the modernist paradigm of discourse that forces the reader to choose between subcapitalist situationism and the dialectic paradigm of consensus. (Incidentally, I have no earthly idea what that means. I got it from the oh-so-useful Postmodernism BS Generator. You’re welcome.)
Similarly, a catchy three-chord pop song performed by an attractive singer whose only formal dance training clearly involved a pole is likely to get far more airplay than say, one of Conlon Nancarrow’s experimental pieces for player piano. (Warning: cannot be un-heard.)
While my examples above focused on some artistic endeavors being more accessible and/or commercially viable than others, genre is about more than simply what happens to be popular. Probably even more important is the way that genre establishes expectation. Genre helps promise an experience to the consumer, sometimes without them needing to read a word or hear a note. When you see one of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels in a bookstore, you know what you’re getting. Ditto when you see a recording by AC/DC, or a poster for an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Like it or not, fitting neatly into a genre makes it MUCH easier to package your work. But that doesn’t eliminate your challenges, because of the next fact I’ll bring up:
3. There’s no “right” way.
If simply checking off some genre boxes was a foolproof formula for success, everybody reading this column would already be a bestselling author. Just because Lee Child earned more money while you read this paragraph than I did in a year, doesn’t mean I can simply write a “Zack Preacher” series of thrillers that will sell equally well. There’s still some magic, mojo and luck involved, along with things like talent, confidence and savvy. And don’t forget determination – most of the “overnight successes” we hear about were years in the making.
But the lack of a “right” way extends beyond genre. There’s more than one route to successful publication, from traditional to self-published, or combinations of both. There are plotters and pantsers sharing space on the NYT Bestsellers list. There are Hero’s Journey writers and Cat-Saving authors and people who’ve never heard of either, all selling beaucoup books. Which is French for “a crapload of,” if I’m not mistaken.
The same goes for music: There are classically trained virtuosos, and self-taught musicians who can’t read a note. There are incredibly polished performers, with seemingly supernatural abilities and machine-like consistency; there are unpredictable punk rockers who can’t be bothered to learn to play or sing, and who may or may not commit a felony during the course of a performance – and that’s if they even bother to show up.
Hell, just among us drummers, there are those who hold their sticks in that rather fancy-looking way you see in Revolutionary War paintings, and those who grip them like a pair of hammers – and an age-old schism between the two schools that can rapidly go off the rails in ways you’d never believe, in the consequence-free verbal-cage-match environment of an internet discussion forum.
Speaking of such forums, the court of public opinion that is the internet has made another truth pretty clear for writers and musicians alike:
4. You can’t please everybody.
I learned this lesson first in music, where people’s tastes can be both highly specific and terribly fickle. It’s not uncommon for a devoted fan of one genre of music to openly hate another – sometimes as a point of pride. Think of the people who make fun of country music, or rap, or some of the more extreme forms of metal (which, okay, I myself sometimes refer to as “Cookie Monster music,” based on the sound of the lead vocalist).
The new lead singer for Apocalypticidal Putrescence
Even more maddening – at least for the professional musicians themselves – is the fact that the audience might love you one year, but utterly hate you the next. Vanilla Ice, anyone? Milli Vanilli? These days it’s very popular to hate Nickelback – but I have to assume those guys cry all the way to the bank about this, having sold more than 50 million records.
While I haven’t seen nearly as much fickleness in literary audiences, there is both a lot of love and a lot of hate out there for any writer, as a few minutes perusing some typical Amazon or Goodreads reviews will quickly demonstrate.
Amazon really blazed the trail in terms of their review system being adopted as a platform for everyday people to unleash their opinions – good or bad – to the whole world, protected by the veil of anonymity. So as any author with thick enough skin to actually read their reviews will discover, there will be people who love your writing. And there will be people who think your writing sucks, and are eager to tell the rest of the world just how much it sucks. Again, that helmet I recommended can come in handy. But don’t get too comfortable, because there’s something else that neither musicians nor writers can avoid:
5. The game keeps changing.
For me, this is one of the most important realizations, and the one I was least prepared for. I started getting serious about writing around 1999, when self-publishing was primarily considered “vanity publishing,” and some pretty well-established scammers were preying on unsuspecting aspiring writers, offering to “publish” their work – for a fee. Back then, the only way to contact an agent was to snail-mail them an actual query letter (on actual paper – gasp!).
And how did we find those agents? There were a couple of websites and magazines that purported to list the major ones, but the way I remember it, the most dependable source of info at the time was a quirky little website hosted by – wait for it – some guy named Gerard. Seriously, it felt like one step away from “Crazy Eddie’s Mattress Barn and House of Literary Agents,” but the word on the street was that Gerard was the one guy who knew all this stuff – or at least so he claimed – and I’m one of many writers who took him at his word during my first agent hunt (and to be fair, I found his information quite useful).
(Note: To make sure I wasn’t hallucinating that last memory, I did some googling and found the infamous Gerard’s old site, which was universally considered THE most informed source – I kid you not. And yes, I can hear you now, saying, “Okay, Gramps – let’s give you your medicine and get you back to the BarcaLounger so you can watch the Rockford Files…”)
Then came the launch of the Kindle in 2007, and the world changed. Self-publishing became a viable option, and an ever-changing series of publication models and marketing approaches has continued to evolve since that time, making it both very challenging and increasingly important to stay on top of trends.
Music, of course, went through its own market revolutions, first with Napster and file-sharing, later with streaming music, and then with home/personal recording technology. It is now possible to make album quality recordings on a cheap laptop in the comfort of your own home, and the revenue models for music have completely shifted, with recording royalties now reduced to a pittance by streaming services like Spotify, while touring, merchandising and ad revenue from video channels has begun generating the bulk of many musical artists’ income. And hell, all that might have changed while I was writing this paragraph.
Whether you’re a writer or a musician, trying to stay on top of all this can be exhausting, daunting, or inspiring as hell, depending on your frame of mind. But if you don’t like the way things are right now, wait a while – they will change again, in ways that are VERY hard to anticipate or predict.
So, does one art help the other?
I think so, but I wonder if that’s partly because I learned one art before the other. As a 40-year-old pro drummer having decided I wanted to write (arguably a more productive approach to a midlife crisis than buying a sports car and dating a much younger cocktail waitress), I came to this new pursuit with a pretty good awareness of how to methodically approach learning a new discipline. I’d had the benefit of studying at one of the world’s great music conservatories, and I also had taught drums for many years, giving me lots of experience at breaking larger challenges into smaller, more manageable tasks and goals. This “learning how to learn” ability has served me well in so many aspects of my life, not just writing, and has given me the confidence to tackle many new challenges over the years, from parenting to computer graphics, from cooking to playing the ukulele.
Notice that nowhere in the let’s-talk-about-MEEEE paragraph above do I mention the T word: talent. That’s not because I don’t believe in talent; I do (and wish I had some). I’ve taught enough students to know that while the notion of all people being created equal is great stuff when you’re writing a constitution, the fact is that when you put a pair of drumsticks – or a basketball, or a paintbrush, or a chef’s knife, or a slide rule (for those old enough to know what the hell that is) – into different people’s hands, it immediately becomes clear that some people were given certain gifts that others were not. But that’s okay. I consider talent a “nice to have,” not a necessity. Kinda like a sunroof on a car. Bottom line: I don’t think you need talent to be a good writer. You probably need it to be a great writer, but not being one myself, I can’t back up that hypothesis.
But looking beyond how knowing one art can help you learn another, I think there are mutual benefits no matter when you are learning/working on an art form. Learning a musical instrument requires discipline and practice, habits that come in handy when you’re on the umpteenth draft of a piece of writing that’s just not working yet. A good musician knows the importance of listening, and I feel that my years of focusing on listening has helped me write dialog that rings true. And as a drummer, you are focused first and foremost on rhythm, and that translates very directly to writing, where rhythm can be created by sentence length, punctuation, paragraph breaks, verbal emphasis, and even the sound and sequence of individual words (Melville is an absolute master of this in Moby Dick, as I gushingly described in this post).
Looking through the other side of the lens, writing teaches you to edit – to carve and polish a thought down to its essence, to make it achieve exactly the effect you’re seeking. As Bob Seger so aptly put it: “what to leave in, what to leave out.” Writing also makes you aware of voice, which translates directly to tone or mood in music. And writing – when you’re looking to get published – makes you very aware of the fact that you’re writing for an audience, so it behooves you to put thought and effort into identifying just who that audience is, and what you’re going to offer them – which is something a performing musician needs to do as well. So I don’t think writing and music make such strange bedfellows after all.
How about you?
I know some of our regular contributors and commenters have multiple artistic irons in the fire, whether it’s painting, photography, acting, or maybe even interpretive dance (I myself am able to speak in spontaneous haiku, after having consumed a sufficient quantity of alcohol, but I digress…). Have you found any connections between writing and your other arts? Have you observed radical differences between them? Does one art help or inform the other? Have you ever tried interpretive dance during a job interview? Oh, and does anybody else remember Gerard? Inquiring minds want to know, so please chime in! And as always, thanks for reading.
Author of the novels Me Again (originally published by Five Star/Gale), and Tony Partly Cloudy (published under his pen name Nick Rollins), Keith Cronin (he/him) is a corporate speechwriter and professional rock drummer who has performed and recorded with artists including Bruce Springsteen, Clarence Clemons, and Pat Travers. Keith’s fiction has appeared in Carve Magazine, Amarillo Bay, The Scruffy Dog Review, Zinos, and a University of Phoenix management course. A native of South Florida, Keith spends his free time serenading local ducks and alligators with his ukulele.
I didn’t realize how much I needed to laugh this morning, though rather dangerous with laptop desk and cup of tea! Thank you for the humor, Keith.
I especially appreciate this bit, “writing teaches you to edit – to carve and polish a thought down to its essence, to make it achieve exactly the effect you’re seeking.” Off to revising I go, to do just that I hope.
Thanks, Lisa – good luck with your revisions!
Gerard? How did I not know? Maybe I was too busy trying to find an agent with my slide rule. (That is what it was for, wasn’t it?)
Everything I need to know about writing I leaned from sailing. You need a boat. You need a crew. Trim your sails so they don’t luff. The only thing constant about the wind is that it shifts. Learn to read the water. It’s not as scary as you think to capsize.
No, seriously, what I have learned is that writing and publishing are not the same thing. They are a paradox. If you write only to publish, your chances of great and lasting success go down. If you write to write, that is to say for yourself and to the beat of your own Cronin (drummer), then your chances of great and lasting success go up.
Practice, yes, but also challenge yourself to master what is new and hard. I am multi-published (under other names) and nowadays I only undertake novels that demand that I learn something that I do not already know how to do. Which is to your point, or one of them. There is nothing sadder than a band on a nostalgia tour who do not believe they are on a nostalgia tour. Keep learning. (Although maybe skip the album of Dowland lute ballads—Sting reference.)
You play the ukulele? Amazing. Like your wonderfully entertaining and thoughtful post. Thanks.
Benjamin – wow, you packed some major truth bombs/life lessons into one succinct comment. You oughta maybe be a writer or something!
To wit:
– “I only undertake novels that demand that I learn something that I do not already know how to do.” Man, I love this approach, and think that to some extent, I aspire to do the same.
– “There is nothing sadder than a band on a nostalgia tour who do not believe they are on a nostalgia tour.” OMG – that hits the nail SO squarely on the head for more bands than I care to admit, including a couple I’ve played in.
There is nothing sadder than a band on a nostalgia tour who do not believe they are on a nostalgia tour. Living in Asbury Park, NJ, I FEEL this.
I don’t remember Gerard, but I certainly remember the era of Gerard. I remember something called The List or maybe it was Andrew’s List that listed all the websites and it was about 2 screens worth, to start.
I work in other mediums besides words and I believe they are all the same thing basically, outlets for our creativity. When I work with metal and raise (repousse) on one side, then refine (chasing) on the other side, it’s like building up the word count on a first draft, then editing and revising. You need to build things up enough before you can shape them.
Thanks for sending me down a rabbit hole of early internet history and for the fun, insightful read.
Ada – I bet you’ve seen Benjamin’s sentiment in action at the Stone Pony more than once. Hopefully not on a night when I was playing there.
And thanks for substantiating that in the early days of “Publishing Meets the Internet,” it really was the wild, wild west for a few years!
Speaking of rabbit holes, you sent me running to my search engine to find out what the heck raise and repousse were. Thanks for sharing the metalworking parallels you’ve encountered!
Oh, I love this!! As what’s known as a “serious amateur pianist” (meaning: someone who studies seriously, but not with any professional aspirations), I have thought a LOT about the parallels between in music and writing, so I’ll throw a few reflections into the pot …
When it comes to language and story, I am a reader of other people’s words and a creator of my own. For sure, they inform each other, but I don’t try to “give voice” to another writer’s vision, as I do when II play the piano. I’m what they call a “serious amateur” pianist, but definitely not a composer :-)
And yet, playing a piece of music that someone else has written is never a rote recitation of something fixed; it’s newly alive, each time. For sure, there is the honoring of the composer’s intention, and also, always, the particular, personal life I bring to the music— in the moment when my fingers touch the keys. I wrote about this, in fact, in my novel THE SOUND BETWEEN THE NOTES. At Susannah’s concert, she understands, finally, that the music doesn’t need to be perfect, it needs to be “real.”
As a writer, I also have to listen. Yes, to be “creative,” but in a way that serves the piece. That is: I need to give voice to the melody as it develops (story line); honor the key it’s written in (tone, voice); listen for the right balance between harmony and dissonance (character relationships); vary the intensity and pace (accelerando, ritardando, to give nuance and expression); exercise restraint in some places and provide detail and depth in others (rubato, “borrowing time” from one note or phrase, and then “giving it back” later). Well, I could go on and on!
Playing the piano has helped me as a writer. I think there is much to be gained, for those of us who spend so much time with words, in exploring another modality that doesn’t rely on words. I always return to “the other keyboard” refreshed, relaxed, and open!
Oops, sorry for the duplicate reference to “serious amateur.” I didn’t reread before hitting SEND.
Insert embarrassed emoji ….
Barbara, thanks for such a thoughtful and insightful comment. That’s a very well-expressed distinction between creating a piece of art, and performing/interpreting it.
And I’m utterly in love with your novel’s title: THE SOUND BETWEEN THE NOTES. That’s beautiful, as well as being deep AF (as the cool kids say).
This is a major truth with which I wholeheartedly agree:
”I think there is much to be gained, for those of us who spend so much time with words, in exploring another modality that doesn’t rely on words.”
Amen!
Keith–Never one to shy away from self-congratulation, I am pleased to see you following my lead. I mean the way you show-and-tell your readers how the antic muse can serve the writer. You clearly and with wit demonstrate how the musician and the writer mirror each other. What’s more, your post offers up a great example of how serious matters can be well served by a whimsical sensibility.
Sadly, I have no multiple irons in the old creative kiln. I’m not firing pots or whacking the crap out of a drum set. No flourishing garden, or clever bird houses fashioned down in my man-cave workshop. No fan- or pole-dancing on the horizon for me, nothing related to the bandstand, circus, or Broadway. There it is, a one-note- samba writer who may or may not have blundered decades ago by choosing to write instead of opening a muffler shop.
The problem I now face is this: among that dwindling band of adults who still read (NPI), how do I identify and then reach those who are likely to be moved enough by what I write to turn the page? As with bands and all forms of entertainment including books, the issue is partly solved by genre. The lover of Bach goes to hear Bach, not 50 Cent. But what about a book that can’t be identified by genre? Midlist is what such stories used to be called. They aren’t genre-specific, and must find their way without easy classification. Ay, there’s the rub.
Thanks for a great post.
Thanks for the kind words, Barry. And I quite like your phrase “the antic muse,” which I saw for the first time in your excellent January post. It’s a much classier way of describing the power of humor in even serious fiction, something that is definitely an essential component of my own literary DNA. My much more dumbed-down way to describe my own writing is “the literary equivalent of a Hugh Grant movie.” Potato, po-tah-toe…
I also see I’m not alone in having encountered the very daunting challenge of trying to pinpoint the audience/market for writing that doesn’t fall easily into a clearcut genre. Ain’t nothing easy about this whole writing thing, is there?
Thanks for this, Keith — important points to help maintain a healthy perspective on the business of writing. Especially useful for me in that I have a zoom call in an hour with the editor who acquired my most recent novel. We’re going to discuss some changes… and that conversation will no doubt touch on each of your five points.
That aside, though, your link to the Postmodernism BS Generator might become one of my go-to writing resources. It’s a gold mine!
Thanks, Lloyd. That BS generator has come in handy multiple times for me, and never fails to deliver an utterly pompous load of polysyllabic nonsense. Hope your editor call goes well!
Keith, you are always an inspiration. Music! Writing! Art! I’m great in the garden digging in the dirt and creating beauty with flowers. I love humor, though when it comes to telling a joke I always mess up the punch line. Piano lessons? I finally quit much to the sorrow of my teacher. We all have to find our pathway…you have more than one. Now after raising three children, I have only one…a desk piled with books and ideas. A manuscript eager for a publisher. I am sending out queries now. Wish me luck, you forever-talented person.
Thanks, Beth. You may be surprised to learn that I pretty much suck at telling actual jokes. I’ve just cultivated a certain facility for making irreverent – and usually inappropriate – observations and reactions to the things around me, which has not always been the most useful skill.
After raising three kids, I think one path is more than enough to focus on – good luck with your queries!
Keith, Keith. You have talent out the wazoo. This was the most entertaining post I’ve ever read on writing and yet full of applicable golden nuggets. Thank you so much for being here at WU!
I believe so strongly that my dance training has influenced my approach to story movement that I’m writing a craft book about it!
One transfer that is more relevant here than it would be to that craft book is that when a dancer is corrected, everyone makes that correction because no one wants to be called out for the same reason. Quietly picking up mistake corrections from all your writing friends is a great way to accelerate learning. Negative impacts from another art form can transfer too though, I fear, such as the perfectionism encouraged by the dance studio mirror that can make for very slow going when revising a novel. 🐢
I love this post so much. Thank you for bringing it your all! I don’t see tiny coffee enabled, so next time I see you, drinks are on me.
Wow, Kathryn – thank you SO much! I’m floored by such praise, particularly coming from you. Consider my month made!
Great point about the potential collective impact of seeing one artist’s technique being corrected. I’ve certainly learned a ton by reading critique threads or seeing live workshops/critique sessions.
And ooh, I’m very much looking forward to your craft book! Or should I say your Craft craft book?
Yay! A Kathryn Craft Craft book! Btw, one of my early mentors introduced me to Twyla Tharp’s book on the creative habit and it resonated deeply.
Keith, this post definitely came from the BS generator — that being Big Smile. Wise (and wiseguy) words on writing, publishing and art’s overlaps. My overlapping art is nitpicking: literally, because I have minor OCD and am constantly picking up tiny bits from our floors. This requires rhythm, this requires a staunch inner voice.
Your fine work here tells me that if I self-publish my books on a mimeograph machine out of my house and put the process on TikTok, I will go viral. The blue hand stains will reek of authenticity. Thank you.
PS – Apocalypticidal Putrescence is an excellent name for a band.
PPS – You really should have used a shot of you shirtless on a romance novel for the lead image here. Next time?
Thanks, Tom. You get me. Which is kind of scary.
And you’re definitely onto something with your viral TikTok mimeographic masterpiece. I’ll look forward to shaking your blue hand when we meet to drink from the skulls of our enemies!
Hi Keith:
Well, I haven’t heard the name Conlon Nancarrow since college, nor have I listened to him in the interim, so thanks for the walk down Loss-of-Memory Lane. And I can’t wait to take the Postmodernism BS Generator for a spin.
I was never the successful musician you were–I did coffee house gigs where I billed myself as the World’s Most Adequate Guitarist, and I played bass in a Midwestern bar band, and the only compliment I ever got was, “Who’s the guy that sings like a chick, he’s really good”–but beyond the business-related observations you’ve made, I’d note that rhythm is too often overlooked as an element of good writing. I often will choose words on the basis of how they affect the flow of the sentence, for that flow subtly affects meaning. And variations in rhythm are a crucial aspect in pacing, from my experience.
Hope all is well in your world.
Señor Corbett – always great to hear from you.
Love your self-billing! During a rather downtrodden phase of my music career when I seemed to be getting nothing but late-night, low-paying blues gigs, I drunkenly decided I needed a “blues name,” and thus was born the percussive legend known as Howling Foreskin. Fortunately the musical tides turned, and the moniker was retired – gone, but not forgotten.
Nice to encounter somebody else who’s picked up on the role rhythm plays in writing – although I should have guessed that already, from reading your stuff!
This is an entirely delightful post, Keith, not just for your usual wit, but because your parallels are so apt.
And this is coming from a former actor and director, who has long noted the parallels between that field and my present one as an editor–not least in the way of character development. I consider myself a character editor, and I’m always endlessly grateful for the extensive exploration of how to do that in my theater and film years.
Great post!
Thanks, Tiffany –
I wasn’t aware of your dramatic past, but this helps explain why you are such a phenomenal presenter.
Love your concept of being a “character editor,” and I can see why your background makes you deeply qualified to do so.
It’s really cool to ponder the parallels and connections that exist between the various things we find ourselves called to do!
Keith, I enjoyed your post so much and all the comments too because there’s so much cross-pollination that occurs when we lead a creative life. I was a scientist for 15 yrs before I became a wife and mother and I found my scientific background informed my writing–not only doing research, being methodical, always experimenting. It’s playful. And you always learn something new. I’m only now becoming a serious musician–it’s been such a joy to build our little Latin choir. We get invited to sing at weddings and other special events, and it’s lovely singing next to professionals because I sound better :) I recently started barbershop and what fun it is to perform–tell a story, really. I often have no words to describe music and really, really love writers who can (James Runcie’s The Great Passion does justice to Bach’s St. Matthews Passion). Music gives voice to the inexpressible, which is what I try to do in my writing. Feelings, baby! Thank you for a delightful post.
Thank you, Vijaya. I love your surprising insight that science can be playful – that’s something I would have never imagined, yet it made sense immediately.
From science to momming to writing to Latin choir and now barbershop? You are truly a Renaissance woman!
I find that so few writers have figured out how to write about music – and I happen to be a big Bach fan – so I’m definitely going to check out James Runcie’s book!
Keith:
After a harried day, I finally got the chance to read your post. Thanks for your wise, and witty, words of advice. Contrary to your claims, I do believe you have talent. Also I would love to read your extemporaneous haiku. (I’ll even spring for the liquid inspiration — I have an account with Binny’s Beverage Depot).
Thanks, Christine – here’s hoping one day I can regale you with my Binny’s-aided haiku mastery, if I ever make a pilgrimage back to my home state!