All Over the Place with Geraldine DeRuiter

Dearest Reader, I have a special treat for you today. I caught up with Seattle-based blogger Geraldine DeRuiter, aka The Everywhereist, and asked her all the things. Not only is her first book, All Over the Place, currently making its way through the holds queues, but you’ll have a chance to meet her June 13th at 6pm at the downtown library! As you count down the days to her Everett debut, you can read this interview where she tells me everything from what she’s reading now to what it takes to get published, not to mention some sweet mustache styling tips from her husband, Rand.

You have a lot of fans on staff at the library! When we chat about your blog posts, the ones that keep coming up are deeply personal. How do you tackle writing about such personal things? Which we love. Please never stop!
Honestly, writing about personal things helps me process a lot of what I’m dealing with. Sitting down and typing out those experiences – particularly negative ones – helps me exorcise those demons. The other thing to remember is that I share a lot – but it’s still only what I’m comfortable sharing. I still have some strong boundaries, despite the personal blog posts.

How do you cope with so many strangers knowing so much about your personal life? Was that just a part of blogging you accepted or did you/your family have to get used to it (or can you ever truly get used to it)?
My husband, Rand, is very open about his life online, so I think I became acclimated to the idea long before I was sharing my own stories. Still, it sometimes catches me by surprise when someone knows something personal about me that I shared on the blog. My initial reaction is, “How did you hear about that?” And then I realize: “Oh, yeah. I posted it on the internet.” As for my family, they seem to have accepted it, though they keep threatening to write their own memoirs.

Like all of your readers, we followed your health scares with worried anticipation. What’s it like knowing thousands of people are more curious about your health than their own?
The response to my posts about my brain tumor were incredibly supportive and loving – I’m still in awe at people’s reactions. And while it felt a bit overwhelming to have shared the experience with so many people, it was also a great distraction from the surgery itself. A big part of why I wanted to write about it is that I found a complete lack of material online about what it was actually like to have brain surgery. So I wrote the post that I wish I’d had beforehand – and I’ve found that those posts still get lots of traffic and comments from people facing the same thing.

Obviously, the internet is full of blogs and it takes something special to truly make a blog stand out from the crowd. Do you have any advice for someone thinking about starting a blog?
When starting out, consistency is key. It doesn’t matter if you blog once a day or once a week, just make sure you do it regularly, and that your audience can rely on it. And pick a specific topic. I meet a lot of bloggers who don’t want to tie themselves down to one subject, but doing so really helps you to focus and develop an audience. Once you’ve got regular readers, you can start to branch out into other subject areas.

I always ask authors what the publishing process is like. Did you just decide to start writing a book, were you approached to write it, or did something else start you down the road to publishing?
I knew I wanted to write a book, but I was feeling frustrated with the hunt for an agent (and you need an agent if you are going to go the traditional publishing route) so I just told myself that I’d start working on a manuscript and see what happened. I managed to secure a small publisher who was interested in my book, but they folded, and I was left with a near-completed manuscript and no idea what to do next. So I decided to take a break and get back to freelancing. I wrote an article about my husband dressing me for a week and it caught the attention of my now-agent, Zoe. And it ended up going to auction, with multiple publishers bidding on it. Which still feels sort of miraculous.

One of my favorite things is when a favorite blogger writes a book. Does your new book cover topics similar to those you’ve blogged about or are you taking readers in a totally different direction?
One of the hardest things I had to learn is that writing a book is not the same as writing a blog. And while fans of the blog will [find] the voice, tone, and personality of the book familiar, the content is all new. So I’d say it’s the same Geraldine, but a new format.

Do you have a dedicated office or writing space? Please describe it; I’m obsessed with workspaces and how people work!
I have a little lofted space at the top of the townhouse that we rent, and I have a standing desk (which helps to mitigate my headaches – even after my surgery, I still get them, and spending hours at a computer does not help). While I’m a pretty neat and tidy person about most things, I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that my office is constantly a disaster, so I usually avoid showing it to people.

Can you offer any advice for writers aspiring to become published? I bet you get that question a lot but it seems like everyone’s experience is unique.
Build an online platform and audience. I can’t stress this enough. Publishers want to know that you’ll be able to sell your book. They will want to know your Twitter follower count, your blog’s traffic, even how many Instagram followers you have. You can get published without an online following, but as my editor put it, “You’d better be a damn literary genius.” And even then, she noted, it’s still a hard sell.

Let’s talk books. What are some of your favorite authors?
I read a lot of non-fiction, and in particular a lot of non-fiction by women writers. I’ve recently cracked up over Phoebe Robinson’s You Can’t Touch My Hair, Mindy Kaling’s Why Not Me? and Negin Farsad’s How to Make White People Laugh. My friend Nora Purmort wrote a beautiful book called It’s Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool, Too.) When it comes to fiction, I really enjoy the work of Tana French, Jeffrey Eugenides, Maria Semple, and Michael Chabon.

What are you reading right now?
I’m actually reading a lot of books by people I know, which is a very new experience for me (being a published author is weird). I just finished Losing the Light, by my friend Andrea Dunlop (I devoured it over the weekend, and I’m a notoriously slow reader, so that says a lot). And I’m about to crack into Jo Piazza’s How to Be Married. She’s hilarious, so I suspect her book will be, too.

Do you have any upcoming projects or adventures you’d like to share with our readers?
I’m talking to my agent about my next book, but that’s a long way off (and I have a lot of research I’ll need to do for it). I’ve got some promoting to do for All Over the Place so I’ve got some travel planned around that, and I’m trying to get back to blogging.

One of our staff bloggers, Jennifer, has a final, burning question: does Rand have any mustache tips for the dapper among us?
Jennifer, are you sitting down? Okay, are you sure you’re sitting down? Because … Rand shaved off the handlebar mustache. I mean, he still has a mustache, but the handlebars are a thing of the past. I know. I know. But honestly, the upkeep was crazy – he spent more time on his ‘stache than anything else. So the advice I’d give anyone who’s considering growing one out: buy some mustache wax, and leave yourself a lot of time.

Thanks, Geraldine!

Reader, if you have burning questions for Geraldine you can bring them Tuesday, June 13th at 6pm at the Everett Public Library Auditorium, 2702 Hoyt Avenue in Everett. She’ll be reading some passages from her book, All Over the Place, and answering questions about writing, travel, and blogging. Copies of her book will be on sale that night, too. Hope to see you there!