Afterward:

“Do you believe in true love?”

Loveland began long before I wrote it. It seems to at it’s core be the fusion of two very specific things: a conversation I had with yaoikitten in which she pointed out that I never write yaoi (fitting that it was her considering her screename) and a completely separate thought that I had fairly different views on relationships and I wanted to write something that portrayed them in a full extent.

More than anything I’d written before, the idea of Loveland went through many different revisions. I knew pretty early on that Cyrus and Aden were the characters I wanted to write (though at that point they were named Corwen and Ren) but the setting and plot mostly eluded me.

The very first incarnation was perhaps the most outlandish, it was to take place in an insane asylum where a very disturbed Cyrus literally believed he was living out each day of his last year, in order. I kind of like this version still, it would’ve been fun to write a whole novel from Mr. Locke’s perspective (who of course was “Cyrus’s” psychologist) but in the end it seemed to drag most if not all the attention from the relationships themselves. Long story short: scrapped.

The next idea I never really fleshed out but is worth mentioning: transient setting. I thought briefly on the idea that each chapter could be set in a completely different world with the same characters. A “love is eternal” message right? It occurred to me though that this was even gimmickier than the last idea and would be hard to do in practice.

The last of my original three drafts was the closest to Loveland’s final form with one distinct difference: it was entirely modern realistic. “Cyrus” wakes up in the hospital, battered and with short-term amnesia, hears about a large Columbine-style shooting at his high school and spends the day trying to remember the day before, looking through his past memories for clues. He finally realizes he was raped by Aden’s homophobic father and that the high school shooting was mostly unconnected- it was done by the character that later became Dacey. “Aden” shows up, tells “Cyrus” that he shot his father after he found out and that he is going to be convicted for murder.

Bad ending! Ouch, I mean it could’ve been an alright novel but in the end I wanted to write something that felt a lot less like “Speak”. And I really didn’t want to give all the characters an unhappy ending… a fact I obviously didn’t realize until after my penultimate draft.

Some time went by (this time better known as End of an Empire and the connected RP, A Final Rose) and I came back to the tragedy of Cyrus, the boy who’d lost everything including his memory. I wrote what I consider the cheesiest of my Loveland-related notes, an idea I can only call the “Loveland Goes Boom” arc. Basically it’s Version 3 set in a futuristic 20th-century mockup trapped inside a giant globe (sound familiar?). The citizens are informed at the beginning of the novel that they are going to be “cleansed” and they had 24-hours to say their goodbyes. Almost the entire cast of Loveland appeared in the notes of this version, with the notable exceptions of Hosanna/Gerard and Mr. Locke(!), the only version without a counselor actually. The story was set to flash back and forth between Cyrus, alone in the hospital, and each of the other main characters as they tried to find and make amends with their love interests. It would all conclude at the same time of course, and then the bomb would go off, killing all of them.

Major downer. And it failed to express many of the sociopolitical statements I wanted out of Loveland, so it was scrapped. Entirely. The whole project. I gave up on doing anything for Loveland other than the few disconnected short stories I’d already written and resolved to move on to other things. Months went by and I never thought back to the odd gay-romance I’d plotted out.

Nanowrimo showed up, something I’d heard about at Kumoricon and was very interested in doing. I decided to go for a non-outlined remake of Meanings of Our Silhouettes (ironically, bits of which appear in Loveland) and was all set and ready to go at the beginning of October. Then, two weeks from November, I found something that changed my mind. The first draft of Loveland. To my shock, the main love interest just happened to have the same name as the guy I’d just gotten over... and it was written almost a year before I met him! More than that, they were just like each other. It was fate.

Of course then I had to change their names and personalities so I wasn’t just writing out my fantasy of what I wish had happened with Ren. What’s more, Ren himself (offhandedly) suggested a plot-twist that resonated with what I wanted Loveland to be. Aden was a girl, and I had my story. Granted that put a dent in my “yaoi novel” but hey, I’ve never been one for conventions.

I borrowed from the other drafts as mentioned above but there are certainly some things new to this version. I think philosophically the biggest addition is my “pendulum of bias”, the idea that we are not nearing social equality just shifting into a female-dominant society. I also went out of my way to tie the 3-5 stories together and flesh out the world around them a little. On the way, David and even Lilith snuck into Loveland from MoOS… which I am still interested in turning into a novel (now slotted to be called New Venetia to match with Loveland).

The writing itself was certainly influenced by a great number of novels, authors, and anime. Most specifically I drew from Francesca Lia Blocke’s style and Revolutionary Girl Utena’s tone. Overall I think it turned out nicely, with just the right mix of symbolism and imagery.

I won’t bore you with the details about actually writing the thing, though I would be thrilled to answer any questions about anything Loveland related. Certainly more thought has been put into it than you might guess, I’m sure I could come up with a good answer for pretty much any kind of question. On a similar note, I’m open to requests and would be happy to do (related or unrelated) shorts for anyone.