Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

Today’s guest for the WHAT is Kira Leigh author of the upcoming debut series, Constelis Voss, a queer, anime-inspired, psychological sci-fi trilogy.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book? 

As I’ve been writing CONSTELIS VOSS in various forms for over 3+ years—and I’ve had the characters for far longer than that—it’s really hard to pin down an origin point. It comes from a lot of places: real-life challenges I’ve faced, my love for 90s anime, the hardships of my friends, and wishing that we could all just cut through the arbitrary bull of hegemonic life and start really caring for each other as the messy, imperfect people we are.

To get to that point, I worked backwards: to tackle a problem, we have to identify it, analyze it, find its weak points, and destroy it. It’s a literary exercise in expelling demons on many fronts. Societal demons, personal demons, and the phantoms of what boxes constrict so many.

It’s so many different things, but I guess the easiest to package answer is that its origin is a contemporary absence, in many ways. 

I didn’t see many characters like me, stories I could relate to, or concepts I thought important to touch on. I knew they were out there, but they were in different genres. Different media pieces. Different time periods, even. The execution of what I want to see is so rare right now.

I had to write what I didn’t see happening, now. All passionately made art comes from defining what isn’t and what you want. It’s desire and longing. I wanted to read characters like me. Complicated, messy, imperfect, queer as the day is long. So I wrote them. I gave them important challenges to tackle—probably far too big for them to be honest—and hoped they’d succeed. 

It’s in that seed of absence, that origin of longing for reciprocity and true progress, that CONSTELIS VOSS was born. It’s messy. It’s not perfect. But it was created as a solution to the lack of something in contemporary media. I think I succeeded.

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

I’m a notorious pantser when it comes to writing. I more or less let the characters react to obstacles in play, concepts I find vital, or events that have to happen, and if it pans out it pans out.

I had an initial throughline because this story started as a DnD-esque roleplaying game. Think: group storytelling with multiple characters and writers. But as that story quietly fell away into the night, and I still had so much more I wanted to tackle, I started writing it all on my own.

I started with that basis, carried my ideas through, and it fell into place. It wasn’t a difficult concept to plot around, because it’s incredibly important to me.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

I don’t think meaning-making is generally static, so the notion of the plot/concept changing isn’t really a thing that I think about or something that bothers me. What I mean to say is that, well, there really aren’t any new ideas.  

There’s nothing inherently conjured that hasn’t been touched on before, in various media. Because of this, our stories and our concepts are often borrowed from the cultural and world-level tapestry of collective creativity. Moreover, the only actual true change we make as creatives in adapting the language of all the art that’s come before us is execution. Execution is everything.

Combining the prior ideas together; if meaning-making isn’t static (like life is ever-changing), and all ideas have been done but not quite in our way as individual creatives, change is natural and expected. Adhering to a rigid structure is foolish.

If the story had to diverge from the initial concept, there was a reason. Be it being inspired by a different form of media, a feeling, wanting to chase a beautiful/tragic idea, or otherwise.

In the end, if you’re good about truly staying in character and your concepts are as alive as your blood, you’ll never really lose your plot. Because it lives inside your bones.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by? 

I am constantly inspired by everything and create on a daily basis. Either paintings, 3D animations, short stories, articles, or songs—you name it, I make it on a daily basis. Fresh material is easy. Having the energy and focus to devote to one specific thing? That’s challenging. Inspired by too much is a good problem to have, but I only have one brain and two hands.

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

It’s moreso about what would benefit the whole of the work most of all. I’m a true believer that form and function must be married in art, and that art is a conversation between the artist and the audience.  

The form of CONSTELIS VOSS needs to be married to what I’m intending to do; which is very many conceptual things. When I say this, I mean to say I have to look at the work as a whole and decide what the best next play is. For myself, and for prospective readers. 

Would they like to know more about the individual characters? Perhaps a segmented novella is in order. Would they want to see what happens next? Then a sequel, which I’m already working on. 

I’m working on both, to be honest. A prequel novella told from multiple perspectives in systematic chapters, and a fun sequel that breaks even more barriers.

Depending on reader feedback, and depending on how I feel about what the strongest conceptual next step is, the choice will be obvious upon the release of the third book in the CONSTELIS VOSS trilogy.

I take my next choices in art-making very seriously, especially considering it’s aiming to be a long-standing IP.

I have 3 cats and a Dalmatian (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

Cats are lovely. We only have 1. I love him, but earnestly he is very vocal, and I have focusing challenges. I find it pretty distracting to have a ‘writing buddy’ but I do like reading my work to people, or just asking for feedback as I’m making it, so I know the form and function (and concepts) are working well.

I don’t need complete silence or anything like this—I actually write chapters to music, specifically chosen to color the writing and give me a good pace to create at, much like real-life exercise. But if there’s too much outside interaction, I tend to lose my spot. Not unlike losing your place in line.

I’d love to just sit with my cat Rolly on my lap and type away, but he likes to meow and paw my nose if I spend too much time doing anything other than cuddling him. Which I love doing...but I’d definitely never write anything ever again if he was my writing buddy. He demands constant attention and he’s adorable enough that he’d get it :)