When I started this off-the-cuff record yesterday, on a website that had had a WordPress update and that I had since given up on several times (resulting in a small grave yard of unpublished posts);
A record about publishing a manuscript of vintage diary* posts, I had no idea where to find or in what state it was;
I honestly had no idea what to expect.

But as I sometimes said after a long night with way too much booze, waking up without a headache “I feel better than I deserve”;
I, got better than I deserved.

In the case of the headache I learned the secret was in “obscenely” expensive wine, including champagne. It gives an insane amount of bandwidth before it will punish you with a hangover.
An amount I never consumed.

But in the case of this project returning to me in mint condition, untouched by 18 months of abandonment, I consider it nothing short of a miracle.
A sign this project has forces working in its favor.

Which doesn’t mean I tackled all possible hurdles, as mentioned yesterday. But 2 out of 3, vanished into thin air.

Problem 1

defined on 12 Dec 2023 as:
“The diary posts were harvested “at first sight”. So only the posts that had in their title that they were part of the diary. But I am not really sure that covers everything…. I think I need to go back to see if I have everything”

Status 13 Dec 2023: UNCHANGED
But I do have an idea how to go about this, tomorrow.

Problem 2

defined on 12 Dec 2023 as:
“I made a beautiful collage as a cover for the book, but have no idea where it is.”

Status 13 Dec 2023: SOLVED
There are three different covers in one of my Download Folders, named “Cover Photos for LSH (LS Harteveld)”. The Download Folder contains old downloads, not recent ones, and next to the Cover Photos Folder, it contains many neatly organized folders with my most important or most cherished collections!
Naturally, these folders do not belong in such a generically named folder, but they are so cherished I FEAR changing anything about them.
In particular after finding these covers, alive and well after abandoning them since *checks dates* October 2021.
Until this book is published NO ONE is going to change a hair on Lauren’s head or book files!

These collages in the Cover Photos for LSH -Folder, are enough for both the first book (1994-1996) as well as a sequel for the years after.

Problem 3

defined on 12 Dec 2023 as:
“There are missing (sex) chapters
And I have no idea if I had dug them up, and included them in the manuscript, or if they are still somewhere to be found.
From what I remember, the first book ended with a chapter that had been online, but then I took it offline, because it was making me very uncomfortable to have this out there.
And the second book ended with a chapter that I did not publish, but kept offline.
But it can also have been the other way around.”

Status 13 Dec 2023: SOLVED
I found what can only be the FULL and UNABRIDGED manuscript!
Including the missing chapters.
For the second book (Dear Nikki) the final chapter was indeed recognizable/identifiable, as having been one that I had taken offline, or perhaps never even published online.
But the main thing was, that it was there, already included.
It is a letter to her pen pal a Californian bootleg trader, living in the UK, a man she calls Nikki.
In her beautiful letter she describes an equally beautiful, tantalizing, best-sex-ever anal sex experience with her lover Bear.

She writes:
“So like I said last time, me and Bear had sex in a hotel room and we were playing he was paying me. And that he’d pay me double for anal sex.      
But what I haven’t told you is how we did it, in detail.”

And detail she sure gives!
What an amazing piece of erotica to read back, on a dull grey and very uneventful Wednesday in 2023.

The second chapter that I remembered to having been taken offline, is less visible. I haven’t found it yet… but I don’t really have to anymore either, because I am so convinced this is the entire manuscript.
Whatever it was, it has been included.
But judging by the content, it wasn’t the final chapter from book 1, as I assumed it had been.

What I propose it that we solve the one remaining problem (1), which is not knowing for sure if all diary blogposts are indeed included in the manuscript, in a way that includes sharing the manuscript, chapter for chapter, with you.

So I go into my “main website” where I published these diary posts over the years, I dig up the post, review the text (work I also have to do before publishing the diary), update the text, and then I share the chapter with you.

And THEN, before automatically choosing the obvious next one, I also have a look at the blogposts written in between.
That way I will notice if there were any diary chapters, that were not labeled as such. And therefor were missed in the first harvesting round.

There are currently 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.

Including, the details.

~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 does not have a “Subscribe” button, nor would I know how to install one.

But you can follow publishing journal on
Facebook
and
Twitter

All my other diaries en 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.