We recently connected with Elisabeth Rhoads and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Elisabeth, thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
Like most writers I’ve met, I started by reading. I grew up in an extremely religious household, and we read the <i>Bible</i> aloud daily. From the age of six, my mother decided that we would no longer have a TV, so weeknights became family reading time. We all took turns reading aloud. My favorites were <i>The Chronicles of Narnia</i> and <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>.
I think the key ingredient in those early reading experiences was that they were aloud. There’s something about speaking the words aloud that helps you understand rhythm, and that became very important to me as I learned to write.
Another valuable skill I learned along the way was editing. Editing can transform average writing into good—maybe even great—writing. That being said, it’s very difficult to learn how to edit, a big reason being that each and every project is unique. I remember attending a writing conference and asking one of the published panelists, “How do you edit?” He said, “Fifty pages at a time.” That told me what to edit, but certainly not how to edit.
<i>Haggard House</i>, my third novel and the one I’m currently serializing on Substack, was the first project where I really learned how to edit. It was a painstaking and painful process. I would go over and over the manuscript, rereading and editing, rereading and editing. I would share it with friends and family, get feedback, and wonder what to take to heart.
Then I would go back and chip away at it some more. Finally, it got to the point where I had gone as far as I could on my own, so I paid a developmental editor to look at it. I thought I was close to the finish line. I was wrong. Countless edits and a major rewrite later, I landed on the version that I’m currently publishing. And even that is not final. I have one more edit to go before I indie publish in June of 2025.
As much as I wish I could have sped up the process, I don’t think it was possible to have gone any faster. One of my hobbies is making a fermented tea called kombucha. Depending on the conditions in which you make the kombucha, it can ferment a bit slower or a bit faster, but the reality is that it has to ferment. There is simply no way to rush it. I think art is a bit like that.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m a novelist, and I’m publishing my novel, <i>Haggard House</i>, as a serial on Substack.
<i>Haggard House</i> is a dark, psychological suspense novel set in the nineteenth century. The story centers around Adam, raised within the dank walls of Haggard House and torn between his fear of Hell and his growing love for the heathen village girl.
Every week, I publish two chapters. Readers can subscribe anytime between now and June of 2025, and they’ll get the latest chapters right to their email. They can also read all the previous chapters on my Substack website. It’s completely free. When the serial ends, <i>Haggard House</i> will be available for purchase.
This has been a long process for me, starting back in 2019 when I began writing the novel. I then spent many years trying to get published traditionally. Over the course of those years, I pitched well over two hundred agents. None of them wanted it.
Honestly, the novel would still be locked up in my laptop today if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was lucky enough to be accepted into a creative writing workshop with the incredible author, Richard Bausch. Richard is a PEN/Malamud and REA Award-winning short story writer and novelist. His feedback on <i>Haggard House</i> was incredibly generous and gave me the confidence I needed to decide to put it out into the world myself. That’s how I ended up publishing it as a serial and how I decided I would build my own team to help me polish and launch it for sale following the end of the serialization process.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
Something I have struggled with throughout my life is self-discipline and diligence. In the past, I had a very poor habit of plunging into new projects (writing or otherwise) full-force, and then burning out and dropping off.
There were actually three things that helped me break out of this cycle. One was that I finally embraced a career path I was so interested in, that no matter how much I felt like quitting at times, I simply couldn’t because I loved it too much.
The second was working with a life coach who helped me begin to set better habits in my life and relationships. This had an enormous trickle-down effect on everything else I set out to achieve.
Third, I chose a partner who is incredibly self-disciplined. Being around him meant that some of his good habits naturally influenced me, and I was able to build on that trait I had already been working towards.
All that to say, for me, the thing that helped most in moving towards my goals, was the relationships I had—something I had previously undervalued the importance of.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being a writer is when I hear someone talk about something I’ve written, and it takes on its own life. It’s probably easiest to give an example. A friend of mine, and one of the earliest readers of <i>Haggard House</i>, made a comment about something that happens with two of the characters. She mentioned that she loved that it was so clear that this particular character was clearly using his position and authority to get something out of the other character. I was surprised because I had no intention of the scene being taken in that way, and hadn’t even considered greed as a potential motivator for that particular character.
That’s the beauty of creative works. Each person who touches it brings their own experience to the thing, and then the work truly takes on a life of its own. That’s what I love most.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.elisabethrhoads.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elisabeth_rhoads_author/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61562751842847
- Other: To learn more about Haggard House and subscribe to read the series, click here. https://www.elisabethrhoads.com/what-is-haggard-house
Image Credits
Both photos in which I’m holding the camera should be credited to: Lucas Van Wyk Joel.