A Commotion in Your Heart: Notes on Writing and Life

"A book that should be on every writer's bookshelf, next to Bird by Bird, Writing Down the Bones, and Welty's One Writer's Beginnings." -SJ Rozan, best-selling author of Paper Son

For writers of fiction, creative nonfiction, autobiography and memoir, and from amateurs to professionals, this book about the creative process is a book for writers everywhere interested in learning more about the craft of writing. A perfect gift for writers of all ages and levels of experience, A Commotion in Your Heart: Notes on Writing and Life takes the reader from the author's childhood dream of being a writer through the ups and downs of publishing. She tells her story with highly relatable vignettes that focus on her own personal moments of clarity about what writing is (and what writing isn't), sharing the pleasures and lessons of more than 40 years of experience teaching writing.

Part memoir and part writing workshop, A Commotion in Your Heart: Notes on Writing and Life offers writing inspiration and practical advice for authors at every stage of their writing journey. This collection of 37 essays includes:

• Chasing the Muse
• But That's How It Happened
• What We Talk About When We Talk About Writing
• Working (a Jigsaw)
• The Voices in My Head
• (Maybe) Don't Quite Your Day Job
• The Revision Toolkit
• and much more!

With short, easy to read chapters, A Commotion in Your Heart: Notes on Writing and Life will inspire veteran authors as well as beginning writers just getting started. And when writing is especially difficult, or when writer's block sets in, award-winning author Barbara Shoup is full of encouraging wisdom.

A Commotion in Your Heart: Notes on Writing and Life is for anyone who understands that writing isn't just a hobby... It's a necessary part of living fully.

Barbara Shoup is an award winning, multi-genre author who served for many years as Executive Director of the Indiana Writers Center and has taught the craft of writing for over 40 years. She has penned eight novels and co-authored Novel Ideas, a highly acclaimed, definitive guide for aspiring novelists on how to write great fiction.

Barbara's young adult novels Wish You Were Here and Stranded in Harmony were selected as the American Library Association's Best Books for Young Adults. Her novel Vermeer's Daughter was a School Library Journal Best Adult Book for Young Adults. She was also the recipient of the 2006 PEN Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Working Writer Fellowship. She lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.