I know, I know, I know...

...I'm such a lazy shmuck. For shame.

What have I been doing?
1. Sleeping a lot.
2. Getting tan.
3. Reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I am determined to get caught up by the big day 7/21/07, as I want to dress as Draco Malfoy, or maybe even Snape, and scare the kids who come in with their taped glasses and magic-marker lightning bolts on their foreheads.

If you're going to give me shit about becoming a Potter-ite, read this first. A1. I resisted Harry earlier on, just as I resisted reading the Beats while at Emerson. There is no clear ration here except for this: if everyone is doing it, stand back and watch first. I have since audiobooked On The Road, (while on the road, in fact) and am halfway through year four of HP. Let me tell you that it's brilliant. Breaks every rule I ever learned, but it's so damn good, one gets over the many, many adverbs quickly. See, I just used one myself. "They're not that bad," he said pointedly.

But the Big Questions I have while reading Harry are the same questions I ask whenever I read something gripping. How the hell does it do that? How does it work? Why did it make me feel that way? And how can I do the same?

Harry Potter is worth studying if only for the Big Question--how does it work? J. K. Rowling has done something no one has ever done quite so well, has published hundreds of millions of copies, and has been paid HANDOMSLEY for doing what she loves--writing stories. She's "the only British woman to be ranked a dollar billionaire. She is also one of only five self-made female billionaires, and the first billion dollar author" (RIFF).

The only other billionaires on the Forbes list who made their bones in the entertainment industry are Spielberg, Lucas, and of course, Oprah.

Alright. What else?

Boston University sent some stuff. Amidst the Welcome! letter and course information was an interesting memo about a new option to stay on for a second year with the School of Education and get a Master's in Teaching and a teaching certificate for 44 states. Not bad. To sweeten the deal, they're offering everyone in the program $19,000 in tuition remission. Were I to do it, I don't know if I would be able to apply for another teaching fellowship and bring that cost down even further.

Something Laura and I have been keeping in close consideration: regardless of how generous this scholarship would be, BU tuition is usually around $35k, so I'd still need to come up with $16,000. Plus the cost of living in Boston is very high. I estimate $1,500 a month would be cutting it close, and not saving a penny. So figure a second year would cost $34,000. With a Master's, teaching at a high school would bring me a starting salary somewhere between $35k and $40k. So does it make sense? Keeping in mind that my professional goals are to a) publish novels, and b) teach at the college level, would four or five years teaching high school help, or delay? Still, it's something to think about. Part of my feels that my year at TMA was enough for me to realize that I could go that way and be successful. Another part feels that going back to high schools would be the wrong direction.

Not bad news, but heavy news worth considering.

Something lighter: after years of offering the MA in creative writing, I think BU is now moving (or maybe has already moved) towards offering the MFA degree. The MFA is the terminal degree in creative writing; one can not go further in academy; there is no PhD in creative writing. If this proves to be true, this is great news. It means that I won't necessarily have to attend another program to get the MFA credential, the degree needed to teach creative writing at the college level.

Off to LA to do a seminar at UCLA. I may post from there if I find the time, though historically, IHS summer seminars are so all-consuming, we often forget to sleep.