We checked in with Noelle Grace O. Pico as we prepare her piece for publication.
Noelle Grace O. Pico is a writer, musician, and professional creative from Pasig, Metro Manila. She views the poetic line as choreography, using cadence and sound to manage the emotional narrative in an act of dialogue. She shares poetry sketches, cozy gaming musings & photography, plus the antics of her overgrown soot sprite of a cat on her Instagram @thenoeychu.
DILIM: What are your earliest memories of writing or creating?
NGOP: I was about seven when I wrote my first song at the back of an L300 van during a summer trip to Bacolod City—and to be honest, my first stories weren’t anything particularly original, they were closer to what we know today as fanfiction because I wanted to go on adventures in worlds like Krynn, Middle-Earth, far into the stars or in futures the way they were depicted in early anime.
My brother actually told me that some of his fondest memories of us as kids was just us doing “what-ifs” right before we fell asleep. It was definitely fanfic before I even discovered the term fanfiction.
DILIM: Do you have a favorite place to feel productive?
NGOP: Other than my space at home, I love sitting and writing where I can people-watch. Sometimes, that’s a cafe; other times, the mall. And in the very rare instances, green spaces wherever those are found. I lead a pretty busy life and I’m learning to slow down, but I’ve found that any free time between commitments is a good time to squeeze in dreaming up stories or having conversations with the characters who live in my head.
Back in college, I was a regular on the MRT that runs the length of EDSA—I wrote a lot during that period and I realized over the last two years that the reason I didn’t write as much is that I didn’t always have the time for productive quiet. And that silence is important for the moments when I want to focus.
Silence is important for the moments when I want to focus.
Silence is important for the moments when I want to focus.
Noelle Grace O. Pico
DILIM: What advice would you give to yourself from five years ago?
NGOP: Probably to just take my time and go easy on myself. I know myself well enough that I’ve always been scared of running out of time to do the things I want to do, so I actually have a bucket list that keeps on growing. But as I mentioned in the previous question, the pockets of quiet and just sitting to observe and be in the moment is just as important as any goals I set for myself.
DILIM: What would you want the reader to remember, long after they’ve left the page?
NGOP: The characters and the version of our world that they inhabit. I’m a big urban fantasy and sci-fi-in-the-familiar kind of writer who reads a lot of books where everything is familiar but also one or two steps removed from reality as we know it. I don’t always write comfortable characters, but I hope they end up memorable enough for readers to want to read more.
DILIM: What’s next for you in your creative process?
NGOP: I have a couple of projects under my belt: editing my debut poetry chapbook, while offering developmental editing to a close friend who’s also a poet and sharing what I’ve learned over the last couple of months doing the gauntlet of submitting to lit mags.
I’m also working on rebuilding my practice for writing short stories in the same vein that I rebuilt my poetry writing practice; revisiting ideas from the last 20 years to see if there are any characters who feel ready to step onto the page while I build out worlds from the ground up. I tend to be my worst critic and that means a lot of my stories get stuck in the idea phase, but I’m teaching myself the courage to put them out in the world.
DILIM: Thank you so much Noelle! Please let us know where readers may connect with you online?
NGOP: @thenoeychu both on Instagram and Threads—but between those two, I’m a lot chattier on Threads since I treat IG a bit like a gallery/studio where I post “sketches” (for lack of a better word) and excerpts of poetry.
I also maintain thehopefulpixel.com, a website I built from scratch last Christmas and that I hope to add more to soon.