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{ previously unpublished draft } Shed a tear ’cause I’m missin’ you | 1995 Series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a little over a month since my last publishing day, because it feels like forever, that I wrote you about finding the unpublished chapter.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.