Hi all. 🙂
Welcome to my new little space on the Internet. Lisi is incredibly busy writing up a storm, meeting deadlines, making moves, so that means I’m the lucky one who gets to spend some quality time with her lovely readers. I hope you will bear with her intermittent absences from her Wednesday Blah-g to hear some musings of my own, but rest assured I’ll just be posting here and there when schedules permit. With that said, I’m so excited to finally be writing my first post on the Office Elf blog! Before I go any further I want to give you a visual idea of what my experience looks like while working with Lisi.
Here’s a shot of the very professional-looking Round Table, on which a great deal of magic happens. As you can see, we take to our notepads and certainly make ourselves at home. Or, at least I do since the office is pretty much Lisi’s home away from home. Lisi keeps a mini fridge nearby and usually offers me numerous caffeinated beverages that I rarely refuse, even if I’ve already had my morning coffee. This is how I get so much work done. And did I mention her office is literally in direct view of the beach? Fresh, ocean breezes mixed with caffeine probably sounds paradoxical, but the combination definitely speaks to productivity. (I am in no way endorsing a spike in your Redbull consumption.) What you can’t see in the above photo is Bee Bee sleeping near our feet. She refused to be pictured because she felt she wasn’t looking her best that day. (But click the About tab up in the Nav Bar for one of the cutest photos of her ever!)
Oh look–
Lisi’s caught red-handed! Er, blue-handed. I turn my back for one second and she’s goofing off again. That’s okay. Considering she’s written upwards towards forty books by now. She probably needs a goofing off session every now and again. I guess Bee Bee and I will let that one slide.
When I’m not literally in Lisi’s office, I get to work from my own office space that’s set up to inspire creativity. Here’s a shot of what I call my “thinking wall,” which helps me do just as the name implies. When I’m working on something creative either for Lisi or for myself, I take to the collaged wall and seek out activating ideas. What you see here is only about 1/4 of it, but Instagram likes to restrict my angle of view.
Here is a link to one of my recent obsessions: AH-MAZING WORK SPACES! There are some featured that belong to famous writers, artists and just overall creative types who clearly have a great sense of the aesthetic. Maybe you’ll get inspired to jazz up your own creative space.
Sometimes I’m not in Lisi’s office or my own office at all, but out at a cafe working via laptop. Here I am at one of my favorite coffee shops called Paper or Plastik.
There is a dividing door and on the other side of it is a dance studio. Might be one of the nicest sights to look up from working and see ballerinas dancing in window light.
And if that weren’t enough, here’s the nifty telephone the cafe keeps in the powder room! (Not that I could say if it’s in working order because I’ve never touched that thing–gross.)
As much fun as working in cool coffee shops and in my own office space is, it still never compares to the good times Lisi and I have at our meetings. She’s so silly and hilarious, and yet completely professional and brilliant that I am just hoping I learn a thing or two through osmosis while I’m elving around her office with her.
Like I mentioned at the top of this post, things have been crazy for Lisi while she’s making deadlines for The Dirty Book Club, and as you know, she has recently finished the first draft for The Phoenix Five (Go Lisi!!! Check out Lisi’s Pinterest to get familiar with characters from each novel). I’ve never had to rely on this mantra before, but I’ve seen the famous saying hanging on the wall of Lisi’s office since our first meeting…
Yep, I figured it was there with a purpose. It’s crunch time for as far as the eye can see and I’ve got a pretty good feeling we’ll both be replaying the framed statement over and over again until 2013 and beyond. Wish us luck and I can’t wait to share more with you next post!
xxoo
Alisha
The Office Elf 