Auteursarchief: LS Harteveld

Another erotic chapter in mint condition | publishing journal day 4

THIS POST WAS EATEN BY WORDPRESS GUTENBERG EDITOR! (losing all its layout) I manage to save and recreate a readable version on my main website: https://laurenharteveld.com/2023/12/16/d-inserted-from-other-blog/ Considering this blog was all about how I wrestled with WordPress Editor, leaving on a high thinking I had found a loop hole, the story has not finished, and I will be back to take on the Gutenberg dragon tomorrow! ~Lauren ps: Looking for the erotic diary entry? Click straight to it here -> Mutuals | “1994”: fanfic inspired erotica episode 2 Assuming that, unlike yours truly, you are not emotionally invested in the events surrounding the never-ending saga of trying to operate a website ran on WordPress’ Gutenberg software, and want to go to the chapter right away? Here it is! Second chapter to the 1994 vintage erotic diary* “A letter to a stranger” Mutuals | “1994”: fanfic inspired erotica episode 2 It was written in August 2019, and the blogpost (on my main blog) has been updated today, December 16, 2023. You can follow the coming together of this book*, chapter-by-chapter, on Facebook and Twitter

->My<- biggest news

Then what is definitely the biggest news of my day, although I confess this came as a bit of a surprise because the chapter is actually really good, and exciting, which is kind of the whole point of erotica but either way- conquering the design issues I have been having the past couple of days, ended up being even more exciting for me! Maybe you could already guess from the fact that the picture was inserted to the right of this text, instead of towering at top of the post; And that the links are no longer blue or light grey but hot pink! But I kind-of found the (or at least “an”!) Classic Editor option on this renewed website, which since had been incontrollable. At least by me. I know this is an exquisitely boring topic AND the Classic Editor option still comes with strange and unpredictable quirks – what I achieved today, will no doubt take time to reproduce tomorrow- but it’s a start! For context: Summer 2023 I invested in having this website updated because it was so far outdated it could no longer run on the update the webhost was making. I had to get help, and for a few hundred euros I could keep it up. A website with which I have had an ambiguous relationship with, for years. Because I don’t have a use for it since I switched to another blog in 2018. But I do still use the email address (although I have not checked it in over half a year) and this website address is the printed address in all my books. But the main problem with this website is that it really requires a tiny interest and effort in running it, and understanding how software updates work. An interest dearly lacking, on my part. My other websites are all smoothly hosted, and continuously (and quietly!) updated by WordPress. This website, lsharteveld.nl, is only running on (not hosted by) WordPress software, hence the effort required from the user to keep things running smoothly. Or, alternatively, wait until you have no other choice and only make emergency interventions when it threatens to fall out. So when I returned here after the work was done by the third party, I noticed that (of course!) they had changed the old-fashioned wordpress, and I was now stuck with Gutenberg here. The standard WordPress, since a couple of years. But on my WordPress-hosted sites Gutenberg can still largely be avoided, by Classic Editor options. It’s not easy, and you need to click away an array of Are you sures?  Any copied text comes out grey. And so on, and so forth. But with a little extra work I get every blogpost in the exact, identical Classical Editor frame I have used since 2010. Now this will forever be impossible on this website. Hell, I don’t even have a Copy Post option here, anywhere! I still think that is definitely a fault from the company that helped me this summer, and should have been there, but okay. Just to illustrate that many options, even the ones that should have been there (like  the copy post option), are not installed. But I did however, find my Classical Editor toolbar!!!! You know where the Classic Editor toolbar was hiding? Under a big, blue PLUS sign +, in the top left corner of the post. I thought the Plus sign meant create/ open a new post! So in my search for Classic Editor options, I did not even look there! So this means that from now on, I will be able to give my links a pink color. In block editor this was not possible. The whole paragraph turned that color, even if I selected just the link. And it means that I can now get the picture in on the right of the text. This was also not possible with my limited knowledge of Gutenberg’s block editor. I couldn’t get it right, and settled for having it towering on top of the blogpost. And, it also means, that once they remove the Classical Editor options from all my other websites, hosted by WordPress, I still will have no idea how Gutenberg’s blockeditor works!  See it when we get there. Emergency interventions only. See you tomorrow Sunday 17 December, for Chapter 3.
You can follow this series on Facebook and Twitter ~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;
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.

The first and probably most outstanding chapter (+ new book find) | publishing journal day 3

Finding the full manuscript of the diary* in tact yesterday, including two chapters which I know had been taken offline or had never been online, because of their sexual nature, made me almost euphoric.
Getting back to publishing the first two years of this diary*, had a flying start, so it was perhaps no surprise that after blogging about it, I extended my work on this project and read the first chapter of the diary.

The plan is that every day I will:
Review one chapter of the diary as it is currently displayed in the manuscript (a Word file);
Copy this (improved) text into the original blogpost, replacing the original text;
Share the chapter with you.

CHAPTER 1

CLICK HERE ->
A letter from a stranger | “1994”: fanfic inspired erotica episode 1
for chapter 1, A letter from a stranger

The first chapter stands out (in a neutral sense) because it is written in the third person, as opposed to the rest of the diary which will be written in the first person. There might be one more chapter where I use third person, I do not recall at this point.

But also, like many first chapters I have dealt with, some even of books and diaries I never completed and that can only be found on my hard drive because I never even blogged them-
but like many first chapters, this one clearly had a lot of work done on it.

Reading it yesterday, after I was done with my work on this project, took me half an hour, and I encountered zero mistakes.
So I am just going to copy paste the text from the Word manuscript into the original post, and share it with you.

The chapter takes place in July 1994 and introduces us to a 22 year old Lauren, who receives a letter with explosive fan fiction.
We also learn the unconventional arrangement she has with her lover Bear, with whom she has been having sex since she was 17 years old.

NEW FOOTER & NEW BOOKS

In this proces of copy-pasting the reviewed text of the Word file into the original blogpost, I discovered two more things.

The first was an outdated footer on the main laurenharteveld blog, where I wrote this chapter;
The second were new books.

NEW FOOTER

The 2019 blogpost of chapter 1, on the main laurenharteveld blog, came with a fully outdated bottom/ closer paragraph with social media accounts I no longer use;
Plus a reference to an umbrella term for a series of blogposts which I have not used in years and had completely forgotten about.
I cleaned it up, and for the upcoming chapters, the old text at the bottom of the chapters will be replaced with an updated 2023 footer.

NEW BOOKS!

There were FOUR upcoming titles outlined in this old footer, that I completely forgot about.
I know I even had a professional designing covers for them, but that one of the reasons I dropped publishing them was actually that these designs were no longer compatible to the way the self-publisher offered their cover-design software.
So at the time, I realized I either had to go back to the designer, or not use these covers. Maybe 2023-me, can come up with a more creative way to use that art work without going back.
But more importantly;
It means that after this diary project, we now have our new titles!!

Not four new titles though:
One title, Big Mistress, has actually been published, and I made a new cover for that.
And one title is a Dutch book. If I publish it, I will now be moving that under my real name.

Leaving TWO titles, which I will from now on be included at the bottom of this publishing journal, as being the ones we’ll do after the first volume(s) of the diary are done.

These two new titles are:
1.Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019
2.I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW

See you tomorrow or Saturday 16 December, for Chapter 2.
You can follow this series on Facebook and Twitter

~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.

Blessed by the Gods of vintage erotic diary writing | publishing journal day 2

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.

Finding Lauren’s Diary including the Secret Pages | publishing journal day 1

There are many unfinished blogposts on this blog. All ones I started, with grinding teeth forcing my way through the new software-
only to give it up, for reasons I cannot remember.
But I do know that ultimately I gave up altogether and just stopped visiting this website.

Ever since an update this website has become unusable to me.
I had to arrange this update, four, five months ago, but it has it resulted in this being the only blog I own that does not have the “cheat option” of Classic Editor.
Years ago, WordPress introduced and ultimately forced upon us, software called Guntherberg, which feature is that it works with blocks, and not like a text editor.
On all my other websites, I can still use the option of Classic Editor, but on this website I cannot.
And I do not want to spend more money.

But this website is still my best, most guilt-free option, to doodle and draft, and just play around with projects that have more of a journal or log function;
And not so much rely on story-telling.

This ancient website gives me a guilt-free place to create as many posts as I want because it isn’t one where people can subscribe to.
So these posts go onto my social media Twitter and Facebook, but do not go out on email.

Today I m giving it another go to bring this website, and my work under the name LS Harteveld, back to life!
WITH the handicap of having to use WordPress Guntherberg.
As you can already see on the photo in center opening this blogpost, instead of the text displayed around the photo, in columns;
I have no idea how this works.

But how difficult can it be, to get some text across?

So why are we here today?

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 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.

I think it was 2021, when 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.

These files must be somewhere on my computer, but I have no idea where.

And there are three things that “‘worry” me, or that I have no idea how to go about. The three things that have kept me from picking up this work, all those years, and that I hope to find out and write about as well, are:

1.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

2.I made a beautiful collage as a cover for the book, but have no idea where it is.

3.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.

So in general, I have no idea if the manuscript (which I still have to find!) is complete, or if I missed blogposts, and I have no idea if I have included those forbidden chapters yet, of which I don’t know where to find them.

I have reserved ONE HOUR A DAY, from this day forward to work on publishing Lauren’s diaries, and will probably add extra (more recent) chapters as well, but I m not sure yet.

My first priority is to find 2021’s manuscript (of 1994-1996) and see what’s there.

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

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

My diaries en erotica are available in my BOOK SHOP

I forgot the taste of sex | time travel journal #4

photo: Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City. My healthy, vibrant, full-on writer vision for myself.

photo: Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City. My healthy, vibrant, full-on writer vision for myself.

I was resistant to even come back to my writer’s account in general, this original LS Harteveld website or the official Lauren Harteveld which I’ve had since late 2018.

Bar the blog posts  I sent to my coach Sara (on the official blog), it has been quiet and the last diary entry from Lauren 1998, THE most important project for me, is from two months back.

Yet despite my LS Harteveld work not exactly flourishing, and Lauren’s 1998 life not giving any exciting diary posts, I don’t feel the project is failing.
Just that it is going very, very slowly.
The things I am currently figuring out in my 2023 life, are not in a stage yet where I can emotionally or technically “translate” them to how they would feel or would have taken shape, in the 20th century.
My out-of-shape-ness bothers me because I am twice as old as Lauren 1998. I know I should just view it from her perspective, as just a recent mid-twenties weight problem, but it is difficult to not think:
“What if I never get my old body back?”
“What if it doesn’t work, because I’m old?”

And the online business I am building, working remote, and the blogging that I do, do not translate to the 20th century either. But as opposed to the body problem, the building a business and sharing your work as a writer, has actually become a lot easier, in those 25 years!

Maybe that is the way to view it;
In 2023 I can build a career as a writer and start a new business, as easy and effortless as Lauren 1998 would have been able to get her thin teen body back.
Which she has set her eyes on.

Maybe instead of focusing on worrying about my body, I should start rejoicing in all the possibilities technology and my experience has brought me.
That professionally, I have the easy ride.

But what both Lauren Harteveld in 2023 as well as my “Time travel” part in 1998 experience, is this;
A loss of sexuality.
Not masturbation wise, that is actually going well. Also because I cherish it, because I recognize this part as still healthy and fully functional. Because the other part of my sexual identity seems to have slipped with dazzling speed, and without any external explanation, I am intentional with my masturbation and try to keep my numbers on the high rather than on the low side.

So I was actually worrying about feeling so out of shape, on the field of sexuality and intimacy. When I thought of sex, it felt like something I had read about or seen in movies. But the physical recollection of decades of sex, seemed to have slipped.
Something which worried me, tremendously.
And I had no idea how to go about it.

Even during the pandemic years, which were the darkest time of my life and I felt forced into a frigid, sterile lifestyle that has done tremendous damage-
but even then I would go out to buy condoms and red lipstick.
I still identified as sexual, and when first half of 2022 I actually had the best sex life ever?
I thought I was out of the danger zone!
I thought I had made it, and that perhaps the pandemic years had twisted something to my advantage. That ultimately the years of quiet and zero flirting with other men than my lover, zero people I fell in love with, for two years meeting zero new people;
That it had all resulted in coming back stronger!

For a moment, I thought it had all panned out well.

And then there was the second half of 2022 which was an absolute disaster socially. It has made it my worst year ever, and my sex life stayed but my ability to be fully passionate was gone.
It felt like my sex was broken, compared to what it had been.
But because second half 2022 had many tragic circumstances, I blamed it on that.

And now it is 2023, and I feel my sexual identity- the foundation of that very sex life I still hope to retrieve- that identity is gone.
I no longer know who I am sexually, and my memories of it feel like a tv series, and not like something I have experienced firsthand.
It is like I am trying on a borrowed identity, of being a sexually active woman.

Whatever brought me The Amazing First Half of 2022, it seemed to have flipped. The sexual basket that had been lusciously filled with surprises and joy, and had a double bottom;
Was empty. 

Until I remembered that I did know this feeling of being fully sexual, yet not having a sexual identity yet. I had been here before. I even remembered the frustration of not having sexual experience, and how I was just dying to get this show on the road.
It was when I was in my teens.

For years, whatever experience I had with sex, it was way below my level of ambition. So I felt the frustration of not having been kissed, and then that was done.
But whatever happened, it was never enough.

Losing my virginity seemed to take years. 
And I buried myself in a relationship, which meant I could now develop my sexuality, but I knew a monogamous relationship was just a starting point.
That I would never stay for the rest of my life with the first man I had all the way sex with.

And I knew that with the second long-term relationship too..

It wasn’t until I was in my early 30s, became single, and started taking that sexuality seriously, that finally, it took off.
I developed the sex life I had been wanting since my teens.

My teens:
The time when I had the body Lauren 1998 wants.
My teens:
The time when I did not have a sexual identity yet.
And sexual experiences were borrowed memories from what I had read or saw in movies.

In the time-travel project, the loosely shaped experiment where I try to live as if it is 25 years ago, Lauren 1998 is inspired by her teen self.
She knows that her teen-self was mighty productive and fabulously in shape without doing anything artificial to maintain it.
Lauren 1998 wants that; The productivity for her writer career and freelance work, and the teen body to lose weight.

But what Lauren 1998 seems to have manifested instead, is the asexuality of my teen years. Of being ambitious, but not knowing where to start. Of always feeling that things are not working. 

I can look at what feels like asexuality, as a delayed response to the difficult pandemic years. Meaning: As a problem.
Or I can see it as a sign that Lauren’s 1998 idea to get back to her teen-self has been incredible successful.

And that it has made me a virgin.

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

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.

Follow THE TIME TRAVEL JOURNAL

Time Travel 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 Time Travel Journal on
Facebook
and
Twitter

My diaries en erotica are available in my BOOK SHOP

 

A quick review 2019-2023 | time travel journal #1

“If I was now living 25 years ago, how would I live?”

In 2019 I started my Time Travel project, where I wrote fictional diary entries from 25 years ago.

I write these diaries on what has been my main website since 2018.
https://laurenharteveld.com/ You can find them under headers such as “diary 1998”.

The diary entries are, not entirely unintentional, pretty difficult to find on my site.
But you can try the following pages:
1. https://laurenharteveld.com/1994-a-performance-art-project/
2. https://laurenharteveld.com/1995-1996-book-2-of-my-performance-project/
And the categories:
3. https://laurenharteveld.com/category/the-time-travel-project/1995-1996/
4. https://laurenharteveld.com/category/the-time-travel-project/1997/
5. https://laurenharteveld.com/category/the-time-travel-project/1998/

Starting at 2019 going on 1994;
The posts were inspired by real life, real time events, but I never “got” into that feeling of actually living 25 years ago.
My time travel project never reached the level and intensity I had intended. It stayed a literary construct, nothing more.

It staying at the surface had to do with the worldwide events of early 2020, when I was seven to eight months into my retro diary series, and toying with the idea of taking it up a notch and turn back time. But before I could decide, we all became dependent on 21st century technology to stay in touch.
Overnight, it became impossible to revive an analogue past, in particular because the social dynamics around real-life interaction affected my mental health.

I know I’m cutting corners here, but to this day I don’t understand why we, citizens, turned on each other and how the responsibility towards vulnerable people was made into a key argument.
Fast forward 2023, and those vulnerable people are still vulnerable, yet those same social dynamics have now entirely returned to normal.
There would not be a lasting protection, and this could be predicted.

You have to wonder who was the biggest villain: The one who openly defended their controversial choice back in the day, or the one who pretended to be with the good and responsible people, until they could get on with their normal life without having to care.
By now you have to explain yourself if you still wear a mask.
The only consistent factor seems to be that the numbers of a majority decide who is right.

It’s comparable with a situation where for example security at a concert would be very tight, and we all tell each other it’s such a good thing that all those weapons are not allowed on the premises, and people making an incredible big deal about it with families turning on each other, people losing friends and everything. And then one year those same people who enforced the tight security, don’t care anymore and no one talks about it.

I have no idea if these paragraphs are enough of a conclusion or attempt of trying to understand why I found those years so stressful, but for now that is all I can say about it.
I do know that my main blog contains several series trying to get my sexuality back as well as my retro-project back;
Both areas of my life were interchangeable to me.

The Lauren who was 25 years younger was living in a carefree analog world, with her lover Bear who was the same age as she was.
But no matter how many “Behind the scenes” (BTS) posts I wrote to write about the real-time universe and how to create space for Lauren 1995/1996/1997 to have a life of some sort;
No matter how many diaries I wrote about my personal isolation and frustration during those years, real life struggles, and regardless of how many quests I took to recover who I was sexually;
It didn’t work.

Everything stayed as dry and rooted in the now, as it ever was.

So now it is 2023 and the social dynamics have shifted. The situation is comparable to late 2019, and I can, and should, dive into the universe of the 20th century.

I am finally going to give Lauren 1998, the life she deserves.

He’s back alright | time travel journal #3

Mr. Big and writer Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City

Mr. Big and writer Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City

This year, I am “supposed to” live, 25 years ago.

It is my time travel project, and I started it in 2019, but because it stayed a literary construct where I basically only translated my diary to a fictional past (as if it happened 25 years ago) I decided to go all in this year.
To an extend the past week did become that “click” moment though!

I am sick, so I had to stay in and couldn’t work.
Although I had a ton of work scheduled for this week, I had to let it go entirely. I was in bed with a fever, and when that cleared up I was still too miserable to do anything else.
But the payoff has been that I finally dropped into that reality of being Lauren in 1998, being at home during the weekend.
I’m convinced that how I feel tonight, is as close as I have ever been to feeling like 1998.

If she had had a week where she’d had to cancel all her freelance stuff, and then stay in over the weekend, because she was just recovering, this is how her Saturday night would have looked.
There were no blogs yet, so she would not be able to type online like I do now.

This inspired me to look up when blogging started, and I found that Open Diary started in October 1998. That means I can make Lauren 1998 an early adapter of this.
The more popular platform Blogger didn’t start until August 1999. 

Open Diary was relaunched in 2018, so I can even consider using the real Open Diary website, although I think that considering my diary content is sexual (hopefully!) it is not a good idea.
But anyway, it means that I can give her an online diary at the end of this year, bringing our lives even more in line with each other.

I have been trying to cultivate being offline, but until I got sick it was unsuccessful. Now it almost feels too easy, but wonderful. The separation between online hours 2022, and the rest of my activities, is taking shape.
So there are a lot of desk hours which in theory could take place in 1998, as long as you’re not too strikt. Doing my finance, doing email, all desk work as long as you don’t touch social media or news sites.
But I could never do that.
I never reached the stage where I had a peaceful, calm, 20th century relationship with my computer.

But now that I am taking my first steps back behind my writer’s desk, it is easy to not get entangled. Also because I have not been active on social media for a week, with the exception of some very specific things that I really wanted to do.
I now feel I can recreate the atmosphere of the 20th century.
The time travel project I wanted to dedicate myself to this year, is finally taking off.

But something I wrote about in my previous Time travel journal, is also still true:
Instead of thinking about my lover as Bear, a man in his 20s, I keep seeing him as Mr.Big.
Something that does not go with being Lauren in 1998.

Naming him Mr.Big dates back to the beginning of our relationship.
I started writing about him as Mr.Big in March 2015, until summer 2019 when I started this time travel project and he became Bear.
For a short while he had two names: Bear when I wrote about him in 1994 and Mr.Big when it was 2019, but I felt he belonged in 1994.
That our Mr.Big and Carrie days were over, and it was now time for our Lauren and Bear days.

In my last post here I wrote how instead of feeling a deeper connection with the younger side of the character, Bear, Mr. Big had been making a comeback.
And this is continuing to be the case.

This afternoon I went back to bed, because I was feeling so sick. The past two days I managed to stay awake during the day, but today I just had to first of all take Paracetamol, which I normally do not take during the day.
And secondly, I needed sleep.
So I slept for two hours, and I dreamed about Mr.Big.

We were in an open relationship, but I felt jealous because I knew I had so little to offer him now. I knew my life had been so boring, and that I was in danger of losing him to someone who would love him, and have adventures with him.
Someone who could offer him a life I never could, but the last remains of my happy carefree adventurous lifestyle has been wiped out during 2020-2022.
I am a shadow of the woman I was, and my life seems to consist of separate events and separate people.
It is no longer integrated.
There is no bigger picture of who I am, and what I am about.

I never even understood that having a structure, an invisible beat to your social life, work life, to your year; That that meant something, and that it was worth fighting for.
I didn’t know what it was, until after 2020, and it was no longer there.
It feels like my Life has ended, in 2020. The beat has stopped.

I’ve been going without ever since, and I have been very aware of that.
Very aware, that I no longer have to offer Mr.Big, what I once did.

So instead of feeling like Lauren 1998 and her lover Bear, I feel like Lauren 2023 and her lover Mr.Big who waits until she finds her inner-Carrie.
But I don’t know how.

And I dream about seeing him flirt with other women and locking eyes with me:
“Baby, I would wait for you, but I have my needs.”
And as I already wrote in the last post as well, I m just happy that at least one of us, is still in the game.

I can’t wait to forget about these past few rotten years, where I lost everything I once called a life, yet didn’t even realize that was a life;
And to be reborn as Lauren in 1998.

Shiny and new.

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

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.

Follow THE TIME TRAVEL JOURNAL

Time Travel 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 Time Travel Journal on
Facebook
and
Twitter

My diaries en erotica are available in my BOOK SHOP

 

A quick review 2019-2023 | time travel journal #1

“If I was now living 25 years ago, how would I live?”

In 2019 I started my Time Travel project, where I wrote fictional diary entries from 25 years ago.

I write these diaries on what has been my main website since 2018.
https://laurenharteveld.com/
You can find them under headers such as “diary 1998”.

The diary entries are, not entirely unintentional, pretty difficult to find on my site.
But you can try the following pages:
1. https://laurenharteveld.com/1994-a-performance-art-project/
2. https://laurenharteveld.com/1995-1996-book-2-of-my-performance-project/
And the categories:
3. https://laurenharteveld.com/category/the-time-travel-project/1995-1996/
4. https://laurenharteveld.com/category/the-time-travel-project/1997/
5. https://laurenharteveld.com/category/the-time-travel-project/1998/

Starting at 2019 going on 1994;
The posts were inspired by real life, real time events, but I never “got” into that feeling of actually living 25 years ago.
My time travel project never reached the level and intensity I had intended. It stayed a literary construct, nothing more.

It staying at the surface had to do with the worldwide events of early 2020, when I was seven to eight months into my retro diary series, and toying with the idea of taking it up a notch and turn back time. But before I could decide, we all became dependent on 21st century technology to stay in touch.
Overnight, it became impossible to revive an analogue past, in particular because the social dynamics around real-life interaction affected my mental health.

I know I’m cutting corners here, but to this day I don’t understand why we, citizens, turned on each other and how the responsibility towards vulnerable people was made into a key argument.
Fast forward 2023, and those vulnerable people are still vulnerable, yet those same social dynamics have now entirely returned to normal.
There would not be a lasting protection, and this could be predicted.

You have to wonder who was the biggest villain: The one who openly defended their controversial choice back in the day, or the one who pretended to be with the good and responsible people, until they could get on with their normal life without having to care.
By now you have to explain yourself if you still wear a mask.
The only consistent factor seems to be that the numbers of a majority decide who is right.

It’s comparable with a situation where for example security at a concert would be very tight, and we all tell each other it’s such a good thing that all those weapons are not allowed on the premises, and people making an incredible big deal about it with families turning on each other, people losing friends and everything. And then one year those same people who enforced the tight security, don’t care anymore and no one talks about it.

I have no idea if these paragraphs are enough of a conclusion or attempt of trying to understand why I found those years so stressful, but for now that is all I can say about it.
I do know that my main blog contains several series trying to get my sexuality back as well as my retro-project back;
Both areas of my life were interchangeable to me.

The Lauren who was 25 years younger was living in a carefree analog world, with her lover Bear who was the same age as she was.
But no matter how many “Behind the scenes” (BTS) posts I wrote to write about the real-time universe and how to create space for Lauren 1995/1996/1997 to have a life of some sort;
No matter how many diaries I wrote about my personal isolation and frustration during those years, real life struggles, and regardless of how many quests I took to recover who I was sexually;
It didn’t work.

Everything stayed as dry and rooted in the now, as it ever was.

So now it is 2023 and the social dynamics have shifted. The situation is comparable to late 2019, and I can, and should, dive into the universe of the 20th century.

I am finally going to give Lauren 1998, the life she deserves.

At least one of us is having Big fun | time travel journal #2

Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City

Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City

My time travel project seems to be moving in the wrong direction.
I’m going back alright!
But instead of feeling like the 20th century me, a 25 year old Lauren who is figuring out life and enjoying a carefree relationship with her lover Bear;
I’m sucked into a rerun of 2015-2016, the time I still identified my lover as “Mr.Big”, based on the character in Sex and the City.

And if he was Mr.Big, I was of course Carrie Bradshaw, the in-love writer, who cannot bear that Big is behaving entirely uncommittable.
Every time she thinks she is entitled to a sign, a gesture, a promise, she ends up being deeply hurt by his ability to deflect them.

My lover and me met late 2014, and I started writing about him approximately March 2015.
I removed those stories from my website, but they’re bundled up in my book “Big” which you can find among the others, in my bookstore.

When in 2019 I started my first diary I wrote as a 25 year younger version of me, I rewrote our storyline and renamed him “Bear”.
A name that immediately clicked.
That I was able to transfer our relationship to the 90s, was a major reason why I knew this Time travel project would be a success. It was one of the main pillars.
The other pillar was my work, where young Lauren needs to figure out how to become a writer, when she can hardly manage finishing her freelance obligations.
A question I still ponder about in 2023.

There are developments in that area, maybe I will tell about them in a future Time travel journal, but just like Carrie, I prefer talking about my love life.
I find career irrelevant, compared to the love life that is supposed to inspire my writing.

To be a writer means to live in a way that there are stories to tell, has become my personal rule of life.

So maybe the jealousy I am about to share with you, is really not so much about feeling jealous in my love life, but about realizing that my ability to write the interesting things, the things I want to write, the things Lauren 25 years younger wants to write about as well, is hinging on one man:
Mr.Big
Or 25 years back, Bear.

If he would move on to greener pastures, and it’s one where monogamy rules and he shuts the gate behind him, I am left without the man who has become my creative lifeline.
And the past few weeks, I have been able to feel that…. the risk is almost tangible, and the danger almost palpable.
Like Carrie, I long for a sign, a commitment. I long for him telling me that there will always be room for me, his little Carrie, in his life.
That he will not leave me without love, without sex, without rendez-vous and stories to tell.
But just like Mr. Big. he doesn’t, and I am left feeling as desperate as Carrie but also with an overwhelming realization:
How did it come this far?

How come, that after eight years, my entire creative core has become synonymous with one man?
When the years prior to that I nourished entire calendars with all the dates with all the different men. They were not conquests, far from! There was nothing to conquer. 
But I cherished how I, an introvert whose most intimate relationship is with her keyboard, had gone out and had made life fun. How we had created good events, good memories, and yes, sometimes sex.
The calendars were a way of hanging on to a lifestyle I wanted for myself.
A lifestyle I did not invest in since 2015.

When I did meet new men, as I had all those years through various internet platforms, it was never the way it was before I saw Big.
It was so clear that my heart, and further south, were his.
The dates felt not-right, and I know I made the right decision to stop searching. To stop creating a “calendar worthy” dating life.

But it means that every time Mr.Big drops out of communication, or if I can feel any sort of change in the way we communicate, I am paralyzed with fear.
“Oh God, what if he leaves me!”

The most stupid thing about the whole situation, is that I want him to see other women.
And I also want him to drop out of communication, when he is occupied by other things including other women.

My worst nightmare would be that he would pledge his undying faith to me, build his entire world around me, and that our love would go from a waterfall of passion to a slowly dying pond where nothing can live.

It’s way better to have him creating waterfalls en enjoying green pastures, with other women – in fact, him doing this is why OUR waterfalls have not fallen flat! It’s certainly not because I have spent eight years behind my desk, I can tell you that! – than to have him standing still, and risk our passion dying.

This is what I have been thinking about.
Instead of dropping into full 90s mode, I worry about the very real 21st century reality that my dating life with new men, has become non-existent.
All my male friends have been my friends for years.
I absolutely love going out with them, but it is not the internet dating game I so enjoyed before Mr.Big. A game I stepped away from, and that was the right decision.
But it does sting, that Mr.Big is very capable of doing that. And even worse;
It stings that if he wouldn’t, we also would not have what we have had for eight years.

My creative lifeline is not just somewhat disturbingly tied to my relationship with Mr.Big;
It is also tied to him making waterfalls and visiting unknown pastures without me.

I depend on him bringing sexual energy, the energy of untold sexual adventures. I see the invisible crown of someone who has made his relationships, including the sexual ones, his priority.  

At best we have a co-dependent relationship, where he depends on me crafting stories, and embellishing his qualities and highlighting the meaning of what comes so natural to him.

In the light of him being so good at something that I have given up on, because it was just causing so much stress, and nothing compared to him;
My biggest hope is that I am giving something back, he craves as much as I crave him.

And my biggest fear, is that I don’t.

.
~Lauren/LS Harteveld

An unexamined life is not worth living

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.

Follow THE TIME TRAVEL JOURNAL 

Time Travel 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 Time Travel Journal on
Facebook
and
Twitter

My diaries en erotica are available in my BOOK SHOP

 

A quick review 2019-2023 | time travel journal #1

 

“If I was now living 25 years ago, how would I live?”

In 2019 I started my Time Travel project, where I wrote fictional diary entries from 25 years ago.

I write these diaries on what has been my main website since 2018.
https://laurenharteveld.com/
You can find them under headers such as “diary 1998”.

The diary entries are, not entirely unintentional, pretty difficult to find on my site.
But you can try the following pages:
1. https://laurenharteveld.com/1994-a-performance-art-project/
2. https://laurenharteveld.com/1995-1996-book-2-of-my-performance-project/
And the categories:
3. https://laurenharteveld.com/category/the-time-travel-project/1995-1996/
4. https://laurenharteveld.com/category/the-time-travel-project/1997/
5. https://laurenharteveld.com/category/the-time-travel-project/1998/

Starting at 2019 going on 1994;
The posts were inspired by real life, real time events, but I never “got” into that feeling of actually living 25 years ago.
My time travel project never reached the level and intensity I had intended. It stayed a literary construct, nothing more.

It staying at the surface had to do with the worldwide events of early 2020, when I was seven to eight months into my retro diary series, and toying with the idea of taking it up a notch and turn back time. But before I could decide, we all became dependent on 21st century technology to stay in touch.
Overnight, it became impossible to revive an analogue past, in particular because the social dynamics around real-life interaction affected my mental health.

I know I’m cutting corners here, but to this day I don’t understand why we, citizens, turned on each other and how the responsibility towards vulnerable people was made into a key argument.
Fast forward 2023, and those vulnerable people are still vulnerable, yet those same social dynamics have now entirely returned to normal.
There would not be a lasting protection, and this could be predicted.

You have to wonder who was the biggest villain: The one who openly defended their controversial choice back in the day, or the one who pretended to be with the good and responsible people, until they could get on with their normal life without having to care.
By now you have to explain yourself if you still wear a mask.
The only consistent factor seems to be that the numbers of a majority decide who is right.

It’s comparable with a situation where for example security at a concert would be very tight, and we all tell each other it’s such a good thing that all those weapons are not allowed on the premises, and people making an incredible big deal about it with families turning on each other, people losing friends and everything. And then one year those same people who enforced the tight security, don’t care anymore and no one talks about it.

I have no idea if these paragraphs are enough of a conclusion or attempt of trying to understand why I found those years so stressful, but for now that is all I can say about it.
I do know that my main blog contains several series trying to get my sexuality back as well as my retro-project back;
Both areas of my life were interchangeable to me.

The Lauren who was 25 years younger was living in a carefree analog world, with her lover Bear who was the same age as she was.
But no matter how many “Behind the scenes” (BTS) posts I wrote to write about the real-time universe and how to create space for Lauren 1995/1996/1997 to have a life of some sort;
No matter how many diaries I wrote about my personal isolation and frustration during those years, real life struggles, and regardless of how many quests I took to recover who I was sexually;
It didn’t work.

Everything stayed as dry and rooted in the now, as it ever was.

So now it is 2023 and the social dynamics have shifted. The situation is comparable to late 2019, and I can, and should, dive into the universe of the 20th century.

I am finally going to give Lauren 1998, the life she deserves.