Even with the two victories, this ride is looking more like a demolition derby than a joyful romp, writes Dan Wetzel on Yahoo.com.
Instead of writing about joyful tractorists who fulfil their production quotas, novelists these days write about kinky sex, drug addiction and extreme violence.
Over time, this process has made writing a joyful experience for me and for the others involved.
Gerard Woodward's semi-autobiographical trilogy about the tempestuous Jones family was one of the publishing highlights of the last decade: the books are sad, funny, joyful and wonderfully written.
That is the impression he gives in an unusually joyful poem he wrote the same year, which refers to Cornwall by an antique, Arthurian name: "When I came back from Lyonnesse / With magic in my eyes, / All marked with mute surmise / My radiance rare and fathomless".
He could craft moments like that are delightful, awful, joyful, and horrible by turn; writing that is eternal.
In the late stages, the kids (spoiler alert) win the singing contest with a rendition of "Joyful, Joyful" that is tacky, obviously written by a clueless grown-up in a nice apartment, and arranged with the worst, cheapest R'n'B fripperies that the time could offer.
"Some days, it's torture," she said, adding, "But just that business of writing a good sentence — it's authentically joyful".
"Joyful and sorrowful," he wrote in his diary.
