What does joy mean to you? To my husband the local Indian restaurant would spring to mind. It’s named Joy and he gets a lot of joy from eating there – as do I as I don’t have to do the washing up. But joy is an odd word isn’t it? We say we are happy, chuffed -add your favourite here – to describe the emotion of joy but I can’t ever recall anyone saying they were filled with joy. Thrilled to bits, over the moon, cock-a-hoop are more common phrases used to express joy.

The  Oxford dictionary defines joy as  a vivid emotion of pleasure; extreme gladness. What is extreme gladness? It sounds a bit weak to me even though it’s qualified by ‘extreme’. Glad isn’t an intense emotion, it smacks of being a little insipid, a bit afraid to let go and be all out happy. It reminds me of the Glad Game that Pollyanna plays. A smirk rather than a smile.

The reason I ask is that JOY is the theme of the latest Writers and Artists short story competition. There’s bags of time to enter as the closing date is 15th February 2015 but don’t leave it until the last minute, get thinking about something now. I’d be interested now what your take on ‘joy’ is.