Hey @natliarelish, glad to have you here!! 
I’m an independed developer creating a DApp on Nervos, so I might be able to answer a few questions. Keep in mind Nervos L1 is based on the Cell model, so not an EVM.
Quoting my favourite Nervos DevRel @jm9k:
Here are the two places to check out if you want to get started on L1. You can also get assistance in the #dev-chat channel on Nervos’ Discord server.
On my side I started with L1 Developer Training Course and asked lots of questions to everybody on the way, especially to @jm9k and @homura, the maintainer of Lumos, the most widely used Nervos L1 framework.
I like to keep things as simple as possible, similarly to how it’s detailed in the courses. That said, there are emerging trends of moving data to the Witnesses. This avoids state rent. Given the appreciation of CKB, this is a smart move. As bonus, while it’s pretty complex, to get an idea of future trends already happening, you may want to check out CoBuild and Cobuild OTX.
- For scaling solutions see the CoBuild OTX previously linked.
- Nervos Godwoken is a layer 2 fully EVM compatible, but it didn’t really succeed in its usage.
- Khalani is a work-in-progress Nervos project in the direction you are interested and coincidentally they have a job opening.
- Nervos Talk (like you did)
- Nervos Discord Server (lot’s of spam bots lately, just ignore requests to join other servers)
- Nervos Nation on Telegram (the most lively place to discuss Nervos related topics)
- A four people Telegram group (that I created to help some friends with your very same perspective)
- Also check out these community links
That should help you get started, back to building 