It’s funny, but my grades have started to matter to me. When I did my first degree I’d routinely get Bs and Cs, and didn’t really give a damn. This time ’round, I keep finding myself getting anxious over my marks. Partly, this is because I have a clearer purpose for this course of study, and I’m conscious of the fact that if I want to get into the MFA Creative Writing programme the year after next, I’m going to have to have got pretty good grades in my Grad. Dip. and Honours.

I think the major reason for caring about my grades, though, is that this is writing that’s being judged, and the more of myself I invest in it, the more I care about what other people think of it. I get quite nervous when I’m about to get a response to a poem or short story, and I’m elated when people (especially the marker) like what I’ve written. Creative writing, in contrast to academic writing, has to involve my emotions as well as my logic - and being emotionally-driven, I have a lot more of my self-concept invested in my stories and poems than in my essays.

Although I do really care about the marks I get for my essays now - I don’t have any grand view of myself as a literary critic, but the essays are obstacles I have to overcome on the way to that Master’s programme, so every good grade feeds my hope of getting to spend a year getting paid (student allowance) to write a book, and every bad grade makes me feel like it’s all a waste of time. Fortunately I’ve managed to keep the grades up thus far - all As or A minuses, except for a C+ for a poem explication (but that was only 10% of the course anyway).