65 percent. My score in my essay on "The Creative Process" I submitted as part of my Master's in Creative Writing at Cardiff University. Not a stunning result I concede, far from a distinction it's true, but a solid pass, and certainly as good as I could have expected, this being the first essay I have ever done. They didn't go in for academic essays in the medical school of my era. It was all, list all the causes of joint pain in order of their frequency of occurrence and suggest treatment plans for each of them.
For my success tribute has to go to my wife, an academic herself, who gave me much invaluable technical advice: structure, format, how to create a bibliography and so on. But she couldn't write the essay - I had to do that. How did my eleven fellow MA students fare? I don't know, and it is unlikely I'll ever find out. My wife tells me it is not the done thing to enquire how someone else got on, and students are reticent about volunteering their scores. But I have heard students rarely fail the course, so I'm sure everyone got over 50%. But who, if anyone, got a distinction. I shall probably never know.
The Lion's share of the marks, however, go to the portfolio: our actual creative writing. Which, if you think about it, is as it should be. It's what it's all about, after all. Once again, I am hoping for a goodish result. I do know my writing has improved considerably over the last five months, which was why I joined the course in the first place.
All this is providing a welcome distraction from the underlying crisis I have faced since last July, and continue to face today. Please God it is over soon, and with a satisfactory outcome.
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