A Quote by Noelle Stevenson

I've always had a lot of story ideas rattling around in my head, but 'Nimona' felt very tangible very early. I knew the ending. So I just started making more and more pages, and then I made it a webcomic, like, 'OK, I'm really gonna do this.'
I had a lot of great lakes of ignorance that I was up against, I would write what I knew in almost like islands that were rising up out of the oceans. Then I would take time off and read, sometimes for months, then I would write more of what I knew, and saw what I could see, as much as the story as I could see. And then at a certain point I had to write out what I thought was the plot because it was so hard to keep it all together in my head. And then I started to write in a more linear way.
I started playing guitar at the age of 8 or 9 years. Very early, and I was like already into pop music and was just trying to copy what I heard on the radio. And at a very early age I started experimenting with old tape recorders from my parents. I was 11 or 12 at that time and then when I was like 14 or 15 I had a punk band. I made all the classic rock musician's evolutions and then in the early nineties I bought my first sampler and that is how I got into electronic music, because I was able to produce it on my own. That was quite a relief.
When you start, it's very cold, an impossible task. But then maybe the characters start to take on a little bit of life, or the story takes a turn that you don't expect ... With me that happens a lot because I don't outline, I just have a vague notion. So it's always felt like less of a made thing and more of a found thing. That's exciting. That's a thrill.
'Nimona' was originally a vague idea I had when I was in high school, when I was just getting into shapeshifting characters. It was a straightforward superhero story at the time. Nimona was named Nightshade, and she had an eyepatch for some reason. There was nothing really special about it, though.
I started to read at a very early age, and I just thought that books and reading were really the most wonderful thing that life had to offer. I think I wrote my very first piece of fiction at the age of 12, but then I didn't write any more for quite a long time.
I've always just felt like an outsider. I've always been made fun of in school ever since kindergarten. For me, when I started singing, that's when I started making "friends,". That's when people started taking an interest in me. That was the thing that made me likable, I guess. Maybe even lovable! I think that's really why I'm so hellbent on doing this as a career is because those are the moments where I felt at my most confident.
When I started making my own music I was listening to people like Erykah Badu and Elliott Smith. I think I always gravitated towards slightly more understated voices because it felt like I could really connect with what they were saying. It felt more like a conversation.
My middle name really is perseverance. I've always believed that I had talent, even when I felt like a very inferior sort of person, which I spent a lot of time living my life feeling that I wasn't worthy. But even then I knew that I had something special, and maybe that's what it takes. Maybe people need to have that kind of particular core driving them. But I felt I had talent.
I was approached by the filmmakers. I didn't know much about the project ["Selling Isobel"], and the more we talked, the more they started to confide in me. I read the script and thought it was really interesting, and then a week later I discovered that this wasn't just any old script, this was actually Frida's [Farell] story and she was trusting me to tell it. I felt very privileged.
When I was talking a lot of trash, a lot of the guys knew that when I started getting serious was when I started getting a little bit quieter. If I started locking up somebody, then I'd start talking even more and I'd talk more aggressive. But once I stopped, they knew I was really serious.
One day, my brother had his friend over, and they were in the laundry room, and I stuck my puppet's head around the door and then started chasing them with it and made my puppet laugh very scary. It was really funny.
I think I felt very alone for a lot of my life, but once I was able to share my story more and more, and people wouldn't say, 'Hey, I felt sorry for you,' but, 'I get it, and I understand you,' it kind of encouraged me to tell it more. I just don't want people to feel alone.
A few years ago, I had an interest in making things that felt more like "pieces." That was when I was making a lot of stuff that you could call beats, and it dawned on me that I could say much more nuanced, precise things if I tried to make them more composed. It sounds a bit corny, but I do love the idea that something can make you forget that you're listening and just transport you to somewhere else in your head.
I picked up the guitar very late, in a very pagan way - I didn't know how to play, but I knew I had to. I drew and I had a diary, but it wasn't enough; I needed to express more. As soon as I learned two notes, I started to tell a story, which is why, I guess, my music resembles blues or folk.
Music is very nebulous, and you can conjure up a lot of moods with music. But lyrics - they're a lot more tangible. They're much more specific. And you want to say something meaningful and creative and artistic and that tells a story and that takes people someplace else.
I do wish, when I was younger, that I knew that I was gay. It would have made things a lot clearer for me. Really. Looking back on it, it was so obvious, but it never really dawned on me. Socially, I felt like I didn't know how to be and who to be. If I had known back then, it would have given me more self-confidence.
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