On Self-leadership & Craft

Noey Pico contains multitudes as a professional haver-of-interests—writer, marketer, poet, fiction author, tabletop enthusiast and creator. For this Take Five, we get into just a few of them, from self-leadership and writing to her latest venture into dark fiction.

Hey Noey, on a scale of “productive” to “blanket burrito,” where do rainy days usually find you?

Wearing my 20-pound weighted blanket in my cave-like room with warm lamps (no big light!).

I'm a monsoon girlie—cooler temps and rain help me focus so much better. Yoko ng inet.

This month, we’re all about self-leadership as a way to navigate uncertainty. As someone who’s led teams and continues to lead your own growth, what does it look like for you today? 

I love this quote from Heraclitus: “you never cross the same river twice”, which I pair with the meme “I need an adult, why am I the adult?” Uncertainty drives people to extremes: micromanage everything, or give up control altogether. Self-leadership sits somewhere in the middle, where there’s enough discomfort to drive action, but not too much that I stop before I start.

It’s not easy and it's definitely a daily practice—getting crystal clear on what’s in my hands right now, focusing on the essentials, and acting, even when circumstances aren’t ideal.

Have I been in this river (of growth) before? Likely. Were the circumstances of this river the same as before? Probably not. From there, I ask myself: boots, boat, bridge.

Speaking of your own journey, you’ve been writing professionally for quite a while now. What still keeps it interesting after all these years? How does writing for work differ from writing for yourself? In what ways have they shaped each other over the years, if at all?

Gamification! I crave the right mix of structure & creativity, though I remind myself that purpose dictates the piece. So, I try to make writing fun, which means setting up rules of engagement.

Understanding how to deliver client work on-brief sharpened my creative writing. It pushes me to clarify who I’m writing for without pandering to the audience. On the flipside, poetry and flash/micro fiction give me room to play around with the mechanics of how to approach copy. For example, I take the content marketing baseline—as briefed, as expected, aligned with best practice—and translate that in fiction to: will this scene make the reader react the way I want them to?

Writing is, at its core, getting an idea across to another person, even if that someone is yourself.

Do you remember the first story or poem you ever wrote?

My first “poem” was actually a song—I was seven, holding a word-sticker pack, bored at the back of an L300 in Bacolod. My first story (which I self-bound because I’m extra) was a Power Rangers fanfic. Don’t come for me!

Your short story, Clicks, Cravings, Kundiman, will be featured in Galleon Dreaming, an anthology of dark fiction from the Philippine diaspora. What inspired the story, and what was it like writing it? Follow-up: Kickstarter’s closed, but where can people find it if they want to place an order?

I got annoyed over something really rude online and needed an outlet—no joke! It evolved into exploring how a Visayan cryptid might experience time, memory and change.

Process-wise, it was iterative and experimental. I wanted trilingual dialogue where Filipino words weren’t italicized or treated like a glossary, while still keeping non-Tagalog/Ilonggo readers engaged. Challenging myself to execute that was great, and DILIM Press agreed.

Founders Edition copies are at creaturesofkwento.com, and the anthology hits local bookstores October next year!