Considering this is one of those “no excuse” edits, where I go into the manuscript (and the chapter’s original blogpost), edit it, update it, and write this post here regardless of how late it is and regardless of how tired I am, I got off lightly this time.
Sometimes there are just so many difficulties to overcome, editing the text. But I really wanted to get behind my desk and do it;
Fired on by the fact that I have such an insane schedule this week, it will probably be my only chance to post anything, until Sunday 24th of March.
It was now or “never”.

Make a post.
Do the work.

Only to then read the printed manuscript, and see it was already edited. And then to my happy surprise the (quit difficult) edits were also already entered into the Word file, so there was no more work for me to do, other than copy paste it into the blogpost.
Which I did.

This is the updated blogpost

When your fears subside and shadows still remain | 1995-1996 diary

Chapter 2 of Dear Nikki, the second part of the diary*:
“A Letter To A Stranger, including book 2: Dear Nikki”

There was nothing I needed to do, the work was already done, probably late 2023, when I was still on the wagon here.

I could read the chapter about two young people, who had been lovers in college, but then he chose another woman over her.
But blood is thicker than water, and their affection for each other rekindled their love. Forbidden this time.

The scene of the hotelroom, about two young adults trying to make it work, is vivid.

This time all I did was enjoy it and think:
I love these two.

~Lauren/LS Harteveld
An unexamined life is not worth living

* An About section, on this diary project, has been added to the bottom of this post.

since 2018 my official blog is: https://laurenharteveld.com/
This is also where I write my Lauren 1999 diaries.
Plus letters to my coach Sara.

publishing journal is a stand-alone project, written on my oldest blog, which has software I do not master (explaining the light grey or blue color of the links; I cannot (yet?) change this);
And it also does not have a “Subscribe” button, nor would I know how to install one.

But you can follow publishing journal on
Facebook
and
Twitter

This blogpost was about the publishing process of

A letter from a stranger  
diary 1994 – 1996
including book 2, Dear Nikki

There are currently (I may have missed a chapter, which will be added as we go)
13 chapters in book one “A Letter To A Stranger”, 1994-1995,
and 22 chapters in book 2 “Dear Nikki”.
These first two Volumes will be published in one bind, and are expected to be for sale in 2024.

The books I’ll be publishing next are:
1.Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019
2.I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW

All my other diaries and erotica are readily available in my BOOK SHOP

* ABOUT THE DIARY 1994-1996

In summer 2019, I started keeping a fictionalized diary, as a 25 year old younger version of me. Events that happened in 2019 found their way into the diary, translated to their late 20th century reality.
And I also absolutely, intended to LIVE, like it was 1994!
But this is a hard thing to do, I feel I am still (2023) learning there…. but that is my endgame;
To LIVE like it’s the turn of the century.

It was/is an amazing project, and to this day I consider the diary entries it produced on my main blog, my best and certainly my most interesting work, because it combines performance art (living in the 20th century) with diary writing, leaving ample room for fiction.

In 2021, I harvested the diary posts I had so far, with the intention of creating a published diary out of it. Two actually, volume 1 and 2, but I decided to put them in one bind.
But I abandoned the project in spring 2022, losing complete touch with the project….

December 2023, I have picked up publishing this amazing work, of vintage erotica.

I have two chapters for you today.
First off, I will repeat the one I shared with you last time.
A text which did not get published until the 12th of February 2024. It will be included in the manuscript as a prelude to “book 2 Dear Nikki”:

{ previously unpublished draft } Shed a tear ’cause I’m missin’ you | 1995 Series

And here is the official Chapter 1, which was just edited:

A Year of Writing | 1995-1996 diary

With these shares I have opened yet another streak of this publishing journal, which has proven to be such a rocky road.

I can’t believe it’s been just a little over a month since my last publishing day, because it feels like forever, that I wrote you about finding the unpublished chapter.
The prelude to “book 2: Dear Nikki”, which I am “currently” editing.
The quotation marks stand for the fact that it is progressing so slowly, this retrieving and editing and putting together of the original blogposts, which were written between 2019 and well, up until the beginning of this year actually.
But the book I am currently publishing is Volume 1,
“A Letter To A Stranger, including book 2: Dear Nikki”
Which are all posts written between summer 2019 and 2021.

The retro diary writing served as a parallel reality for me.

However, as if keeping track of two timelines with a 25 year gap (summer 2019 became summer 1994, and moving up from there) was not complicated enough as it is (but perhaps you rather forget this part); there is a “loop” in the storyline, as well!

Meaning that in different years, the storyline repeated itself and turned out to be so similar, the only way to tell in which year it is, is by checking the dates.
The events are exactly the same.

My lover broke up with me in December 2019 (retro diary 1994), but also in December 2023 (retro diary 1998).
Meaning I was getting over the breakup, finding my feet beginning of 2020 (retro diary 1995) and now, the beginning of 2024 (retro diary 1999).

Fortunately, with book 2: Dear Nikki, we’re a little bit further into the year, so this means that I now get to read chapters of October 1995 (written October 2020).
They indicate that by Fall, I will definitely be feeling a whole lot better than I am now!
Although getting back on that proverbial horse again (dating and sex), came with problems of its own, as Chapter 1 illustrated. (A Year of Writing | 1995-1996 diary)

Yet right now, March 2024 (/1999), my love life still feels so non-existent, my mood vulnerable, and my whole sexual identity has simply plummeted when the man left.
I know, not healthy! I’m working on it, you guys!
But these diaries from the year after the first breakup, are hopeful.

If it panned out once, it will pan out again.

There will be light at the end of the tunnel.

One day, I will have a lover again, and apparently it could be as early as October.
Fingers crossed.

~Lauren/LS Harteveld
An unexamined life is not worth living

* An About section, on this diary project, has been added to the bottom of this post.

since 2018 my official blog is: https://laurenharteveld.com/
This is also where I write my Lauren 1999 diaries.
Plus letters to my coach Sara.

publishing journal is a stand-alone project, written on my oldest blog, which has software I do not master (explaining the light grey or blue color of the links; I cannot (yet?) change this);
And it also does not have a “Subscribe” button, nor would I know how to install one.

But you can follow publishing journal on
Facebook
and
Twitter

This blogpost was about the publishing process of

A letter from a stranger  
diary 1994 – 1996
including book 2, Dear Nikki

There are currently (I may have missed a chapter, which will be added as we go)
13 chapters in book one “A Letter To A Stranger”, 1994-1995,
and 22 chapters in book 2 “Dear Nikki”.
These first two Volumes will be published in one bind, and are expected to be for sale in 2024.

The books I’ll be publishing next are:
1.Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019
2.I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW

All my other diaries and erotica are readily available in my BOOK SHOP

* ABOUT THE DIARY 1994-1996

In summer 2019, I started keeping a fictionalized diary, as a 25 year old younger version of me. Events that happened in 2019 found their way into the diary, translated to their late 20th century reality.
And I also absolutely, intended to LIVE, like it was 1994!
But this is a hard thing to do, I feel I am still (2023) learning there…. but that is my endgame;
To LIVE like it’s the turn of the century.

It was/is an amazing project, and to this day I consider the diary entries it produced on my main blog, my best and certainly my most interesting work, because it combines performance art (living in the 20th century) with diary writing, leaving ample room for fiction.

In 2021, I harvested the diary posts I had so far, with the intention of creating a published diary out of it. Two actually, volume 1 and 2, but I decided to put them in one bind.
But I abandoned the project in spring 2022, losing complete touch with the project….

December 2023, I have picked up publishing this amazing work, of vintage erotica.

Today, 12th of February 2024, which would translate to 12th February 1999 for my Vintage Retro Diaries*;
I found this post in my drafts.

{ previously unpublished draft } Shed a tear ’cause I’m missin’ you | 1995 Series

It came with an introduction, excusing myself if I ever accidentally hit publish:

I stopped writing online, but still make my documents here.
So if I ever accidentally hit publish, this post might be removed.

Over the past few months, I have been updating retro-time travel diary posts, where I live the life of my younger self, a process you can follow through this blog you’re currently reading, which is posted to Facebook and Twitter.

And I was aware that there could be unpublished posts, which should not just be published after all, but should also be included in my manuscript;
The to-be-printed version of the diary 1994-1995 and 1995-1996

In December 2023, when I started this process, I still dutifully opened every post “in between” my retro diary entries, just to make sure I did not miss a diary chapter.
But they were never missed diary sections, and yet I still always felt compelled to update and improve on these “current day” posts of 2019, and it wasn’t until long before I gave up checking the in-between posts for lost gems.
I would stick with reviewing the official, labeled-as-such, diary posts, as I had identified and extracted them in 2021, and all others would simply be lost.

A wise decision, because as soon as 2020 hit, the number of posts multiplied, the array of different series got messier, I start-stopped projects and buried them in layers of timelines and identities.

2020 was when my work assumed a petticoat like shape;
Layer upon layer upon layer.
Or story within story within story, like a Russian Matryoshka Doll.

In the process of extracting whole series from that blog (my main blog since 2018), the pandemic years are going to represent the biggest challenge for sure.
They’re going to be what is known in the marathon world as the last 10K, which is to say;
Curating 2020 and 2021 are a race of its own.

So I was happily surprised when scrolling through half a year of blogposts when I did not write for my retro diary (I would pick it up in August 2020/1995) I noticed a draft and clicked it;
It was indeed, an unpublished diary entry.

And boy does it come, on the most inconvenient day!
I already copy-edited three (!) chapters of the diary in the manuscript. They are the first three of “Volume 2, 1995-1996: Dear Nikki”, and the idea that I now had to edit the blogposts to match the improved manuscript;
Share these three here;
And write one of these little publishing posts for them;
Was daunting.

The topics of these three posts were so meaty and stirring so many emotions, the last thing I felt like writing was a publishing post that was “little” and “in service of”!

And it was on that day, I encountered an entire new chapter.

Luckily, it makes a great preface to Volume 2, where it will become the unnumbered opening chapter to this second volume.

And I will be sharing with you the next three chapters later this week.
Gives me a little bit more time as well, to come to grips with it.
Maybe it is for the better this way.

~Lauren/LS Harteveld
An unexamined life is not worth living

* An About section, on this diary project, has been added to the bottom of this post.

since 2018 my official blog is: https://laurenharteveld.com/
This is also where I write my Lauren 1998 diaries.
Plus letters to my coach Sara.

publishing journal is a stand-alone project, written on my oldest blog, which has software I do not master (explaining the light grey or blue color of the links; I cannot (yet?) change this);
And it also does not have a “Subscribe” button, nor would I know how to install one.

But you can follow publishing journal on
Facebook
and
Twitter

This blogpost was about the publishing process of

A letter from a stranger  
diary 1994 – 1996
including book 2, Dear Nikki

There are currently (I may have missed a chapter, which will be added as we go)
13 chapters in book one “A Letter To A Stranger”, 1994-1995,
and 22 chapters in book 2 “Dear Nikki”.
These first two Volumes will be published in one bind, and are expected to be for sale March 2024.

The books I’ll be publishing next are:
1.Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019
2.I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW

All my other diaries and erotica are readily available in my BOOK SHOP

* ABOUT THE DIARY 1994-1996

In summer 2019, I started keeping a fictionalized diary, as a 25 year old younger version of me. Events that happened in 2019 found their way into the diary, translated to their late 20th century reality.
And I also absolutely, intended to LIVE, like it was 1994!
But this is a hard thing to do, I feel I am still (2023) learning there…. but that is my endgame;
To LIVE like it’s the turn of the century.

It was/is an amazing project, and to this day I consider the diary entries it produced on my main blog, my best and certainly my most interesting work, because it combines performance art (living in the 20th century) with diary writing, leaving ample room for fiction.

In 2021, I harvested the diary posts I had so far, with the intention of creating a published diary out of it. Two actually, volume 1 and 2, but I decided to put them in one bind.
But I abandoned the project in spring 2022, losing complete touch with the project….

December 2023, I have picked up publishing this amazing work, of vintage erotica.

After a month, I am finally back to editing my book, and I must say it has been a way more chaotic and timely process to get back into, than I presumed.
But before I take you with me on my current journey, here’s the result.

The updated final chapter of the first volume of my retro diary:
When Your Innocence Dies | 1995 series { final chapter Volume 1, 1994-1995 }

So if, like me, you are disoriented getting back to in this series, the chronology is as follows:

On the last day of 2023 my affair stranded after 9 years, and although he has never committed, and has frequently drifted out of my life, this cut immediately felt more severe, because he moved away.
He sold the condo.

I translated this breakup into my vintage diary series, where it is always 25 years ago. So on 31st of December 1998, Lauren’s lover “Bear” moves away.

In the final month of 2023, I had also started editing and publishing the first two Volumes of this retro diary:
1994-1995 A Letter From A Stranger
and
1995-1996 Dear Nikki

Diaries which also revolve around a breakup; Around our first and only other one, in December 2019, which translated to December 1994.
Today’s updated diary entry was from May 1995, so half a year after our first breakup:
When Your Innocence Dies | 1995 series { final chapter Volume 1, 1994-1995 }

So ironically, because that breakup also happened in a December (2019, time-travel vintage version 1994), this time of getting back on my feet in January and February feel like one big Deja Vu.
Even when the breakup is more painful, because it was not done in friendship. It wasn’t “done” at all. He just left and pretended nothing had changed.
He acted like he owed me nothing after 9 years of not having a recognized relationship and maybe he didn’t.

Still, it was far more hurtful than December 2019, when he showed up to finalize it.

Luckily for me, and for the vintage diary, we did get back together, and the sex became otherworldly good. It was almost like it was worth it, to have things shaken up!

Until February 2023 and upward;
I could feel him withdraw, and we never had sex again. To be finalized on December 31 by him casually mentioning he no longer owned the house, his home away from home, close to where I live.

Eager to not let this get to me, I returned to editing this series as soon as I could.
I did not want to lose touch, publishing these books!
And for a while, it looked like I made it, as I published 3 or 4 posts here, containing 3 or 4 edited diary entries, in January.

Only to then let the publishing drop after all, and now it’s almost Valentines Day.
The hours behind my desk, finding the Word file with the master diary, digging for the blog version of the old diary post, and logging into this very old website for this publishing diary;
It has taken ages, and my mind was scattered.
Even “just” making a Canva took 90 minutes…..

So in retrospect, me muscling through it in January, and thinking I had beat “this thing” called falling off the wagon, because I was sad, was not the end of it.
I would still, drop off the wagon.
I would still, be clueless getting back, and need half a Saturday to copy-edit the chapter in my masterfile, copying it into the old diary post, and then writing this post, a publishing journal post.

It feels so strange to be here now. Lauren Harteveld is not my real name, it is my alterego. It was never invented to cover up for Mr.Big/ Bear: My alias is much older than that.
But because the affair with him was so intense, and I would never have been able to sustain the tension of being a mistress, had I not been able to write about it;
My Lauren Harteveld work, became synonym to my affair to him.

Being on this blog, rereading the diaries?
It all feels like wandering through the empty house of our affair, sorting through boxes of memorabilia.
But they no longer contain life.

I so, so very vividly remember the urgency of writing, when our affair started. Writing was my breath, my shield, and it was my sword.
It became incredibly potent, because my very life was at stake.

Without writing, not only would I not have had these juicy retro diaries, starting in 1994 and running all the way up to January 1999, where Lauren 1999 tells of her lover Bear moving away;
Without writing, I would not have had him, and without him, I would no longer be writing.

I was able to go on the adventure with him, because I had this powerful weapon of the pen. I knew that regardless of how much I was in love, and how many hearts he had broken, that I was not defenseless.

But it wasn’t until long, that the roles flipped;
Instead of needing my pen, to be with him, I started needing him, to be with my pen!
The sword only wielded when it had a worthy adversary, or at least a worthy sparring partner.

Since 2015, my best writing, my most powerful writing, has been the one invoked and inspired by him.

I do not wish for him to return. In particular not, because it was his choice to leave.

But I do wish my hands to remember the power of their sword;
The pen.

~Lauren/LS Harteveld
An unexamined life is not worth living

* An About section, on this diary project, has been added to the bottom of this post.

since 2018 my official blog is: https://laurenharteveld.com/
This is also where I write my Lauren 1998 diaries.
Plus letters to my coach Sara.

publishing journal is a stand-alone project, written on my oldest blog, which has software I do not master (explaining the light grey or blue color of the links; I cannot (yet?) change this);
And it also does not have a “Subscribe” button, nor would I know how to install one.

But you can follow publishing journal on
Facebook
and
Twitter

This blogpost was about the publishing process of

A letter from a stranger  
diary 1994 – 1996
including book 2, Dear Nikki

There are currently (I may have missed a chapter, which will be added as we go)
13 chapters in book one “A Letter To A Stranger”, 1994-1995,
and 22 chapters in book 2 “Dear Nikki”.
These first two Volumes will be published in one bind, and are expected to be for sale March 2024.

The books I’ll be publishing next are:
1.Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019
2.I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW

All my other diaries and erotica are readily available in my BOOK SHOP

* ABOUT THE DIARY 1994-1996

In summer 2019, I started keeping a fictionalized diary, as a 25 year old younger version of me. Events that happened in 2019 found their way into the diary, translated to their late 20th century reality.
And I also absolutely, intended to LIVE, like it was 1994!
But this is a hard thing to do, I feel I am still (2023) learning there…. but that is my endgame;
To LIVE like it’s the turn of the century.

It was/is an amazing project, and to this day I consider the diary entries it produced on my main blog, my best and certainly my most interesting work, because it combines performance art (living in the 20th century) with diary writing, leaving ample room for fiction.

In 2021, I harvested the diary posts I had so far, with the intention of creating a published diary out of it. Two actually, volume 1 and 2, but I decided to put them in one bind.
But I abandoned the project in spring 2022, losing complete touch with the project….

December 2023, I have picked up publishing this amazing work, of vintage erotica.

Today I reviewed (not edited a single comma!) an “April 1995” diary* entry, where I allowed the current day reality at the time of writing, which was April 2020, to shine through.
A dream I had in the first months of the pandemic, about deserted venues and the change in how we interacted with each other.

‘Cause all these dreams are swept aside | 1995 series

The dream in the story is real, but the key of the 1995 series is that it are real time current day events, translated to a fictional past.
So in this case my April 2020 dream, that was absolutely 100% identical to the one written down in the 1995 diary, was given the context of a 20-something Lauren, dreaming about an unknown disease that could be transmitted (and kill you) just from standing too close to each other.

In 1995 I let her connect this prophetic dream to her overcoming her aids phobia. And how her world would look if everyone had to overcome the fear of death, before they had sex.
Wouldn’t that be a thing.

2020-me really thought that the pandemic would raise awareness of how we always put ourselves at risk. That there is no such thing as safe sex, anymore that there is such a thing as safe life.
Even risk management has to come from an acceptance of the risk itself, something Lauren knew had been the biggest flaw of 80s sex education.
The illusion that there is safety and the refusal to discuss risk management. How good does the sex needs to be, or how much fun your partner, how close to your ideal mate?
In order for the risk of -> safer <- sex (not the delusional idea of safe sex) to be appropriate for the level of sex you’re having.

And instead we didn’t have risk conversations in the pandemic, anymore than we had them during the aids crisis.
Things were always dumbed down to safe and unsafe, and now even more than during the aids crisis;
Things were divided into being good or bad.

If you were washing your hands, wearing “a mask” (which were just cloths in the Netherlands, the majority of the pandemic, and the working masks were never part of official legislation) and if you were vaccinated you were good, even when it did little to nothing to prevent other people.
And if you were not vaccinated you were bad.

Just like in the 80s when you contracting hiv was a sign you had not listened, and had been a bad girl or boy, because why had you not had safe sex?!

In both cases there was a staggering eagerness to simplify it to a level where we didn’t have to have a real conversation with each other, about topics we rather avoided.

The pandemic did not cause polarization: It just brought to the surface which groups of people did not have the same values.
And in the Netherlands the group who shared the value that we were going to pretend we were doing something about it without actually doing something about it – and firmly against anyone pointing out nothing was actually being done – was the biggest one.

Exactly the way aids education was being treated in the 80s:
We’re going to make a big fuss, with alarming brochures with blood spatters and calling it a global pandemic that can affect anyone;
But we’re not going to sit down and have a conversation about risks, and about how certain groups are at a higher risk than others, and they need to follow other trails of thinking, of logic.
And the people who do not belong to those groups need to understand their privilege, and to not see them not getting infected as a personal achievement that makes them better than somebody who is hiv positive.

Oh, the lessons that could have been learned there.
And of course were not, and then in the pandemic once the vaccines came, we had the whole thing all over again. Where the ones not at risk of getting it, were all in favor of a simplistic populistic way to “do something about it”, which was to blame anyone who did not want to get vaccinated.

Even though the ones at risk are still at risk now, and living in fear now (2024)

The whole vaccination dumbification discussion was a necessity, to put the blame somewhere so the majority who did get vaccinated could move on, leaving the scapegoats as well as the ones vulnerable to the virus, behind.
Just like the majority of the heterosexuals never looked back to the 20th century, if they even listened and cared in the first place.

But April 2020, translated to April 1995, I didn’t know all that.

And I dreamed of working in a closed venue, with colleagues who were social distancing without knowing the word.
There was a disease you could get from standing too close.

And I let Lauren dream and think it over in her bed in the morning.
What if?

‘Cause all these dreams are swept aside | 1995 series

~Lauren/LS Harteveld
An unexamined life is not worth living

* An About section, on this diary project, has been added to the bottom of this post.

since 2018 my official blog is: https://laurenharteveld.com/
This is also where I write my Lauren 1998 diaries.
Plus letters to my coach Sara.

publishing journal is a stand-alone project, written on my oldest blog, which has software I do not master (explaining the light grey or blue color of the links; I cannot (yet?) change this);
And it also does not have a “Subscribe” button, nor would I know how to install one.

But you can follow publishing journal on
Facebook
and
Twitter

This blogpost was about the publishing process of

A letter from a stranger  
diary 1994 – 1996
including book 2, Dear Nikki

There are currently (I may have missed a chapter, which will be added as we go)
13 chapters in book one “A Letter To A Stranger”, 1994-1995,
and 22 chapters in book 2 “Dear Nikki”.
So with my resolution of giving this project one hour a day, I should be able to share the entire 1994-1996 diary* with you before the end of January 2024.

And it is expected to be for sale March 2024.

The books I’ll be publishing next are:
1.Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019
2.I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW

All my other diaries and erotica are readily available in my BOOK SHOP

* ABOUT THE DIARY 1994-1996

In summer 2019, I started keeping a fictionalized diary, as a 25 year old younger version of me. Events that happened in 2019 found their way into the diary, translated to their late 20th century reality.
And I also absolutely, intended to LIVE, like it was 1994!
But this is a hard thing to do, I feel I am still (2023) learning there…. but that is my endgame;
To LIVE like it’s the turn of the century.

It was/is an amazing project, and to this day I consider the diary entries it produced on my main blog, my best and certainly my most interesting work, because it combines performance art (living in the 20th century) with diary writing, leaving ample room for fiction.

In 2021, I harvested the diary posts I had so far, with the intention of creating a published diary out of it. Two actually, volume 1 and 2, but I decided to put them in one bind.
But I abandoned the project in spring 2022, losing complete touch with the project….

December 2023, I have picked up publishing this amazing work, of vintage erotica.

This is the chapter of the diary* I edited today:

Take that one to heart | “1994” series
(with new 2024 art work/ picture)

And although that post has a different title than this publishing diary – “Take that one to heart”, a title inspired by Guns N’ Roses lyrics, a feature all chapters from the first volume of the diaries have – its title could have been “Ass sitting hours budget”!
Because the conditions the entry in the (faux) retro diary* was written under, are exactly the same as the conditions today.

A struggling feeling, knowing that although I wish my task was to write – and I most definitely wish my life was made richer by the physical presence of the men I was and am in love with!- there is no other conclusion than that A. well they’re obviously not here. The situation of the diary is repeating itself January 2024.
And B. The only thing missing from my writing career is becoming consistent in publishing my material. Absolutely not, in writing it.

And besides, if I have learned anything it is that the only thing I am really interested in writing about, the only aspect of life where I think:
“Yes Lauren! You do that better and in a more interesting way than others!”
is writing erotic diaries.
Now you always need pages (diary entries) that are about the story, to give the sex context.

But with my last time sex being one year ago, January 2023, there really isn’t any story that I should write about or keep track of, other than what actually happens in the real world, in real life, with the men I am in love with.
The “Slash” persona (from the retro diary) disappeared from my real current day life when the location we both occasionally visited, stopped and he did not pick up on our contact, even though he has my number.
And I have never initiated contact with a man who is in a relationship, not “even” for friendship, and in fact never intend to initiate contact with men, period.

And Bear, or Mr.Big as I call him in the 21st century, has gone through lengths to remove himself out of our affair.

So!

With writing being an entirely obsolete activity because there is nothing to write about, what I should focus on is publishing.

And worry about how I will spend my ass-sitting budget, as the 1995 diary entry calls it.

How can I cut hours behind at my computer, so that I can add publishing hours without totally wrecking my health.

And judging by the 9(!) hours of sleep I needed last night, and the horrible headache I have today, I am not even close to the finding the most economic way to spend them.

~Lauren/LS Harteveld
An unexamined life is not worth living

* An About section, on this diary project, has been added to the bottom of this post.

since 2018 my official blog is: https://laurenharteveld.com/
This is also where I write my Lauren 1998 diaries.
Plus letters to my coach Sara.

publishing journal is a stand-alone project, written on my oldest blog, which has software I do not master (explaining the light grey or blue color of the links; I cannot (yet?) change this);
And it also does not have a “Subscribe” button, nor would I know how to install one.

But you can follow publishing journal on
Facebook
and
Twitter

This blogpost was about the publishing process of

A letter from a stranger  
diary 1994 – 1996
including book 2, Dear Nikki

There are currently (I may have missed a chapter, which will be added as we go)
13 chapters in book one “A Letter To A Stranger”, 1994-1995,
and 22 chapters in book 2 “Dear Nikki”.
So with my resolution of giving this project one hour a day, I should be able to share the entire 1994-1996 diary* with you before the end of January 2024.

And it is expected to be for sale March 2024.

The books I’ll be publishing next are:
1.Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019
2.I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW

All my other diaries and erotica are readily available in my BOOK SHOP

* ABOUT THE DIARY 1994-1996

In summer 2019, I started keeping a fictionalized diary, as a 25 year old younger version of me. Events that happened in 2019 found their way into the diary, translated to their late 20th century reality.
And I also absolutely, intended to LIVE, like it was 1994!
But this is a hard thing to do, I feel I am still (2023) learning there…. but that is my endgame;
To LIVE like it’s the turn of the century.

It was/is an amazing project, and to this day I consider the diary entries it produced on my main blog, my best and certainly my most interesting work, because it combines performance art (living in the 20th century) with diary writing, leaving ample room for fiction.

In 2021, I harvested the diary posts I had so far, with the intention of creating a published diary out of it. Two actually, volume 1 and 2, but I decided to put them in one bind.
But I abandoned the project in spring 2022, losing complete touch with the project….

December 2023, I have picked up publishing this amazing work, of vintage erotica.

As usual, since this IS a publishing journal (not a diary!) (technically!) (meaning I always have a lot to say about everything that happened!) let me first share the chapter of the diary* I edited:

I remember when we met | “1995” series
(with new 2024 art work/ picture)

It is a breakup diary*, taking place in January 1995, where a 22 year old Lauren looks back on her affair with her lover Bear, who broke things off with her in December 1994.

Back to current day, January 2024, and clocking in at .. *checks date previous post* 11 days!
Eleven days, needed to recover from the December 2023 breakup, as described in my last post here, January 1st. And 11 days without working on my book.
Well, for an affair which was broken-up only for the second time in 9 years, dropping out of attending to your most “slow moving”, longterm project of publishing your retro-diaries, is not too bad.

The first few days I had to talk it over, but now I no longer even mention it. It’s like after recovering from the initial shock, my coping seems to be to just pick up life and move forward.

A big difference between my retro diaries, a project I started in 2019 where I started documenting my life in a fictional format of living 25 years ago, and real January 2024 life, is that I am not in my twenties anymore, and that at my age you simply cannot waste that much energy on people making different life choices.
Even if that choice is cutting off what I think will end up being the most thrilling sexual relationship of my entire life, which is considerably longer and richer in experience than 20th century Lauren’s life!

Even then.
Let go.

And let’s say I did have the energy to spend on mourning my loss, the loneliness or even my wounded heart; Why, would I do that?
It was a voluntary choice he made, and in the end I think our loose arrangement was way more ideal for me than it was to him.

I loved having a lover, who represented all that was good about men, about life, and even about me!
I loved our times together.

But to him, as long as I knew him, there has been a deep desire to be a monogamous reliable man. Something he will never have with me, because even if we would be a couple, I would never encourage his monogamy.
Monogamy is my turf, I am so loyal the monogamy was in all probability coded into my DNA, because it’s certainly not backed up by my principal choices.
It just never happens, even when I can be in love with multiple men, and willing to make space for it and explore it.

I know these things now. And since then I know that in my relationships, if I want them to be healthy, there can be only one of us living an introspective predictable life, and that seat is taken.
The arrangement where he did whatever he wanted to, and we dated and had great sex, was an absolute revelation for me.
But it was not what he aspired to be.

So what else can I be but happy that he found a way to structure his life, and who knows our friendship, in a way that he is no longer tempted by me?
And that’s how I feel.

Of course I am bummed out this has been dragging on for over a year, since I have felt something shifting late 2022, and he kept dodging the subject every time I brought it up.
But those things were his choice, and freedom has always been at the heart of our affair.

Including the freedom to take 14 months and end it by casually mentioning the penthouse where we saw each other for 9 years is gone.
Including that freedom.

I don’t know if I can really flatter myself with the thought he had to sell real estate in order to not be tempted to have sex with me.
But it is little more than a fun thought, a good story to tell. Not something that I need to be true in order to be okay with it.

He was not as happy with us as I was, and he removed himself out of our affair to pursue happiness.
May he find it.

~Lauren/LS Harteveld
An unexamined life is not worth living

* An About section, on this diary project, has been added to the bottom of this post.

since 2018 my official blog is: https://laurenharteveld.com/
This is also where I write my Lauren 1998 diaries.
Plus letters to my coach Sara.

publishing journal is a stand-alone project, written on my oldest blog, which has software I do not master (explaining the light grey or blue color of the links; I cannot (yet?) change this);
And it also does not have a “Subscribe” button, nor would I know how to install one.

But you can follow publishing journal on
Facebook
and
Twitter

This blogpost was about the publishing process of

A letter from a stranger  
diary 1994 – 1996
including book 2, Dear Nikki

There are currently (I may have missed a chapter, which will be added as we go)
13 chapters in book one “A Letter To A Stranger”, 1994-1995,
and 22 chapters in book 2 “Dear Nikki”.
So with my resolution of giving this project one hour a day, I should be able to share the entire 1994-1996 diary* with you before the end of January 2024.

And it is expected to be for sale March 2024.

The books I’ll be publishing next are:
1.Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019
2.I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW

All my other diaries and erotica are readily available in my BOOK SHOP

* ABOUT THE DIARY 1994-1996

In summer 2019, I started keeping a fictionalized diary, as a 25 year old younger version of me. Events that happened in 2019 found their way into the diary, translated to their late 20th century reality.
And I also absolutely, intended to LIVE, like it was 1994!
But this is a hard thing to do, I feel I am still (2023) learning there…. but that is my endgame;
To LIVE like it’s the turn of the century.

It was/is an amazing project, and to this day I consider the diary entries it produced on my main blog, my best and certainly my most interesting work, because it combines performance art (living in the 20th century) with diary writing, leaving ample room for fiction.

In 2021, I harvested the diary posts I had so far, with the intention of creating a published diary out of it. Two actually, volume 1 and 2, but I decided to put them in one bind.
But I abandoned the project in spring 2022, losing complete touch with the project….

December 2023, I have picked up publishing this amazing work, of vintage erotica.