Author: LS Harteveld

Quitting her career in yoga,       
has left Lauren craving for some guidance on who she really is.
And she’s in for a surprise.

This is how it’s going to be.
A new start. A new me.
And a different way to write: On my offline computer which is two decades old.
But my God does this feel good.

I often compare the different stages of my life, my emotional states, to feeling sick. Right before you throw up it’s the worst of the worst.
But then after you vomit you feel so relieved and you think:
“That was it already?”
Or maybe if you’re more poetic you prefer the saying:
The darkest hour is right before the dawn.

My darkest hour was indeed before the dawn, although it’s been two weeks now. My decision to quit my business was followed by 48 hours of disintegration. Like Brad Pitt’s transformation in Interview with the Vampire:
He fell into a state that was somewhere between a psychotic delirium, and coming down from crack. Before he was reborn a vampire.
And before I was reborn a writer.
More beautiful, stronger, and living on different things.
That’s how I was reborn, all fresh and new.
Just that Brad Pitt seemed to be more stable!
“That’s because in reality we move in and out of seeing the vision of our new life,” my coach Sara said. “Sometimes it’s foggy.”

But the weirdest thing is forgetting to tap into it.
ALL you have to do to feel better is see the future: Just to lift your head and look straight ahead.
Yet instead I’ve been looking down a lot lately.

Although it’s not all negative. It seems to be my way of letting go of the old, and preparing for the new alike. I do this by going through all my stuff, and my archives in particular.
Even the admin I’ve neglected since July, which was when I realized reorganizing my business was not going to be as smooth as I thought it would be. And that maybe I didn’t want any of it, anymore.
That messy box of archived admin, that had been accumulating for the last months, was suddenly appealing to go through. And I’ve also cleared out my yoga stuff.
Everything that was part of my past, my job, my identity.

I even realized my initial love for yoga, which started in 1998, was never going to come back. It was just a dream that quitting teaching would magically turn back the clock and restore yoga to what I perceived it to be, before I took an official training.
After twenty years yoga had died on me.
I got inspired to start cycling. Which was actually my form of exercise pre-yoga, as well as pre-gym.
From my 12th to my 18th I cycled to school. Two forty minute bike rides. And it kept me a small size 6.
The only reason I started gaining weight in my late teens was because I started doing fitness. It was all muscle.
So now I’m taking hour long bike rides.

I told my coach Sara that I feel sadder about losing my business, than about losing yoga. And she specified that it was the freedom teaching yoga had brought me. It had allowed me ample time to write.
Now there were two ways in which I could continue being a writer:
Either I could get a real job.
And this would discharge me from creating content, being active on social media, selling books, promoting myself. I could focus fully on creative writing, and didn’t have to do any of the business stuff.
OR
I could invest that time I would normally spend with an employer, running my own business. And start making money as a writer.
I was definitely all for option 2. At the very least, before I would assume I couldn’t make a living from writing books.

Sara made a suggestion.
And she did it as if it was something I could be taking the wrong way. Like a lewd, indecent proposal.
“In order to hold this vision, some people – and I have no idea if this speaks to you – but they make like a collage. Of where they want to go.”
“You mean a vision board!”  I yelled.
Sara was not too keen on using that word but yes. A vision board.
“I’ll be right back Sara!”  I shouted at our Zoom connection as I rushed out of my study. I came back with my vision board, that I had in my bed room. I had refreshed it a few days ago.

Eager to show her that I had been very active, I started to explain all the things on it.
Such as a daily schedule which included sleeping in;
An hour of soothing archiving and sorting through clippings;
Daily housekeeping which I found the most powerful mindset work imaginable. I actually used the words “mental spa”!
And the schedule contained second breakfast.
“I think every schedule should include second breakfast,” I said to Sara. “It’s probably the most important meal of the day. Mine is French toast.”

I was still dreaming of how beautiful life is, if you can have daily French toast at ten. (eggy bread in UK English, and wentelteefjes in Dutch) when Sara said she now understood even better why I didn’t have a desire to learn how to write.
Nor a desire to read, in order to become a better writer.
She had already explained to me that there were so many types of writers. From marketing writers to text book writers. So that it was a broad term.
But I told her, that although I knew that, I was still shocked by how many writers, who I did or had considered like-minded souls, were concerned with learning how to write.

I was of the opinion that a real writer needed to UNLEARN, undo, to go back to the ultimate basics of keeping life as simple as possible.
Not cram your mind with what others think, have written, or anything.
I was a firm believer in uneducating yourself, and taking in as little writing or opinions of others as you could. It baffled me that every writer I knew, seemed to disagree!
They were all keen to get approved by readers, publishers, critics. And they spent their lives getting better at the skill of writing.
Yet I was a hundred percent convinced I was right.
And I would never change my mind.

A writer’s job was to not pay attention to anything but their inner world. Where my mind now drifted back to how sweet life was when your second breakfast consisted of French toast.
“I have mine with lots of sugar and cinnamon, Sara,” I brought the conversation back to what really made me tick. Apparently even talking about learning how to write drained me.
“They’re so good! And I bake them in real butter. Lots of it.”

Sara smiled and she tried to bring my attention back to what she had discovered on my vision board. Next to my ideal day, it contained a poster I had created that said Sleep yourself thin;
A collage of photos of me, or that inspired me, all taken in London.
And it held two A4 laminated posters, both with the header “365 days”, and each had about ten photos of Sharon Stone, playing the stunning and most likely murderous Catherine Tramell, in Basic Instinct 2.

Mysterious and not to be trusted. This is who I really am.

“Basic Instinct 2 was also filmed in London,” I told Sara, explaining the connection between all the photos. “Three people saw that movie. Including me.”
And then I started telling Sara that the entirely fictional character of novelist Catherine Tramell from Basic Instinct 1 and 2, was my writer idol. Because she was just soo wicked!
And well dressed.

“She’s so mysterious!”  I yelled. “And she can NOT be trusted, Sara!”
As if Sara would run into Catherine on her way to the grocery store.

Sara kept pointing at my board.
“That’s not a typical writer’s board,” she said.
Which surprised me. I had never thought about it like that. I didn’t even know what a typical writer’s board would look like..
“There are no people there sitting at their desks. Typing.”
Sara was right. There weren’t.

And in over a decade, I had never owned any vision board that contained those things. Nor had my vision board ever had pictures of real life writers, nor any pictures of books. Nothing like that. I agreed with Sara that it was indeed odd that my vision board didn’t hold anything related to writing.
“You’re more like a performance artist,” Sara said. “That’s why you need to be alone and why you spend so much time cleaning your house and sorting through all your things.
You need to clear the way, so that you can be in that energy of being mysterious.
The energy of being that person.”

What Sara was telling me was that I had never quit my yoga studio to set up my career in writing.
But to become intriguing, fascinating, and Someone Who Cannot Be Trusted.
More beautiful.
Stronger.

And living on different things.

<3LSH
An unexamined life is not worth living

Who’s that Girl is the twenty-eight chapter from Project M. 

Want to know what happens next?
The subscribe button is somewhere on the right.
or follow Twitter ; or Facebook
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BOOK SHOP
Gives a 25% discount on all prices
Select your store f.e. Nederland or United States
with the flag in the upper right corner.

spotlight on:
Het Boek Benjamin
verzameld werk Engels en Nederlands
2006-2016

Een meisje vrijt met een jongen en een homoseksuele man. Naast het overweldigende verlangen, is ze zich hyperbewust van de risico’s. Zal haar lust het winnen van de angst?
Zo opent het magnum opus van LS Harteveld.
Na de coming of age novelle Mango, duik je in het dagboek van een yoga docent. En hier blijken de fictieve karakters uit Mango bestaande personen.
Benjamin keert zelfs boek na boek weer terug. Maar wat is de waarheid?
En wie is Benjamin?
Het laatste boek gaat over haar affaire met een getrouwde man die ze Mr. Big noemt.
Waardoor de vraag rijst; Is hij Benjamin?
Heeft LS Harteveld haar muze in bescherming genomen en zijn identiteit veranderd? Of heeft ze een nieuwe liefde gevonden? Een vrouw leunt over een tafel. Ze is naakt, op haar blinddoek na.
Haar minnaar rekt haar grenzen op tot het uiterste van wat nog passend is, in dit spel der geesten. Misschien gaat hij eroverheen, dat blijft in het midden. Maar 25 jaar na de eerste scene, is één ding duidelijk;
de lust heeft gewonnen.

Levering in Nederland

De goedkoopste manier om mijn werk te kopen is via de uitgeverij – 
In verband met problemen met de pakjesdiensten én mijn eigen postbus,
kan ik helaas geen boeken meer opsturen.
Maar ik heb ze nog wel.
Je kunt hier beneden de beschrijvingen lezen of mijn boeken
bekijken via de webwinkel en daarna bestellen via mail:
onder mijn eigen naam
Suzanne s_beenackers@hotmail.com
Betaling is vooraf via mijn privérekening, en overdracht op het station van Nijmegen.
Signeren gratis uiteraard!

Minimale bestelling € 10
Als je een bon wilt, moet je via de uitgeverij bestellen, en niet via mij.

Hieronder het oeuvre en de prijzen.
alle boeken zijn handzaam A5, behalve Het Boek Benjamin, dat is groot studieboek formaat (soft cover) dat je open moet leggen.

Het Boek Benjamin €45
Verzameld werk boek 1 t/m 8
Beschrijving boven, losse boeken beneden. 

1. Mango, een novelle  €15
Seksuele safari, van de jaren 80 tot de zero’s.
Een stoer, technisch meisje groeit op met alleen een moeder, in de roerige jaren 80. Roken is nog van alle leeftijden, drinken idem, en seks ook zolang je bestand bent tegen voorlichtingsfolders over aids waarbij het woord AIDS in bloedspatten is geschreven.
Dat blijkt helaas teveel van ‘t goede.
Vermengd met een verleden in Afrika, en een overleden vader, ontwikkelt deze arrogante tiener een angststoornis waar geen psycholoog haar bij kan helpen. Maar ze blijft aangetrokken tot mooie jongens en homoseksuele mannen.

2. Dutch American Diary (2008-2009) €15
Yoga teacher Lauren is in love with two men; One cunning wizard and one half her age.
 The affair was secret so Lauren called him; He Who Must Not Be Named. After the dark wizard in the Harry Potter series. She tried to get over this American but after a year she only has her mistakes to show for. Including dating an Israeli spy and a Buddhist photographer.
Now her wizard obsession is back full throttle and the next disaster has already emerged;  an attractive yoga student. Young enough to be her son.
Faced with nothing but diabolic choices, Lauren confides in her best friend; the warm and friendly Lara. Despite having the same nationality as He Who Must Not Be Named, and working at the same office coven, Lara seems to lack his foul nature.
Or does she?
Once you’ve read Dutch American Diary? You’ll never ever in your life make the mistake of messing with a yoga teacher. 
~Dutch American Diary part 1

3. 22 Erotische Verhalen €15
Literaire pornografie in de geest van Anais Nin en Isabel Allende.
Ze komen en gaan; de kleurrijke personages in deze dromerige erotische wereld, waar ze je één verhaal lang deelgenoot maken van hun diepste verlangen en hun ergste pijn. Die vaker wel dan niet op magische wijze met elkaar verbonden blijken.
Grenzen worden genegeerd, lusten gebotvierd, wonden geheeld.
Sinds Anais Nin heeft geen schrijver zo onbevreesd het grijze gebied durven te betreden tussen het verbodene, het gruwelijke en het goddelijke. De lezer krijgt naast onversneden liefde en zinderende ontknopingen, ook een spiegel voorgehouden die je laat zien wat er zich afspeelt in de donkerste delen van je ziel. 

 4. LS Diary (2012-2013) €10
About three dark men and Lauren getting naked on stage. Not necessarily together.
 Being dark, smart, and handsome, a Dutch writer bears the characteristics Lauren only knows  too well. He looks exactly like her male muse and unwanted protagonist in the majority of her writing.
A published writer and sought-after talk show guest, the Dutch writer has succeeded where blogger Lauren is failing year after year. After year. She feels the weight of her unpublished manuscripts, and her failed attempts to become a writer. To make matters worse she already has one ill-natured stalker. As if the liabilities of being famous have preceded its benefits.
Lauren gets her shit together prioritizing her work, ignoring men, sex and stalkers. But will it work?  Star struck Lauren meets the celebrity in real life, and soon enough her supposedly highly efficient sex-free life includes a naked guest appearance on stage, a blow-job in a parking garage and a seven month relationship.
~LS Diary can be read as standalone or as Dutch American Diary part 2

5. De Candystop (2013) €10
Waar de Nederlandse literatuur tot stilstand komt door een Marokkaanse lekkernij.
Getergd door een rits onduidelijke medische klachten, besluit Lauren geen suiker meer te eten, geen Chardonnay meer te nemen, en geen latte macchiato’s meer te drinken.
Na een paar weken is ze zo apathisch dat ze zelfs vergeet te masturberen.
Tot een jonge Marokkaanse god op tv verschijnt die tegen Lauren zegt;
“LauRRRen! WakkeRRR woRRRden! Ik ben ook schRRRijveRRR en ik heb ook een leuk leven!”
Dat is zo. Sam doet de vier s’en. Hij schrijft, hij sport, hij sekst en hij slaapt.
Ineens weet Lauren nog steeds niet waar het naartoe moet met haar leven, maar ze is wel klaarwakker. Zeker als ze erachter komt, dat Sam binnen een week een optreden geeft bij haar om de hoek.
Sam doet haar denken aan een verboden relatie met haar leerling, iets waar ze gemengde gevoelens over heeft. Sam wil die best met haar onderzoeken, maar hij vraag een prijs…

6. Bedtime Stories (2014) €15
Facing her demons and her muse, Lauren’s sexual history gets its worthy finale.
Lauren is corresponding with Elliot, but somewhere between The Netherlands and Vegas, things have stranded. To get their project back on track Lauren resorts to strong measures: making the whole damn thing public.
Sharing eight months of her life, Lauren’s third diary reintroduces all popular characters, such as writer Rafael and his legendary mythical counterpart Benjamin. Young writer Sam and his ghost twin Valentino.
Closing the Dutch American Diary trilogy, the 1991 story lines are finally tied together. With an extremely satisfying ending. Although not in a way anyone saw coming.
 ~LS Diary can be read as standalone or as Dutch American Diary part 3

7. Mirage (2014) €5
Giving you a little dessert, with all gorgeous writers from previous books.
Lauren, the former hedonistic cougar, is home bound, mothering her little ones, sick with worry and about to get dumped by her lover. Together with autumn setting in, Lauren needs her annual Cute Writer Fix more than ever. And this year there’s five of them.
Including a lunch date with the most famous author of the Netherlands; her youth love Henry.
~Mirage can be read as standalone or as the epilogue to the Dutch American Diary trilogy.

8. Big, diaries & erotica (2015-2016)  €20
The crown to Lauren’s life; a secret affair with her Biggie.
Ten years and ten lovers have taught Lauren two things.
One: single life is a disaster.
And two: men suck at anal sex.
So when Mr.Big comes along and succeeds where all the others have failed, Lauren is euphoric. She immediately picks up her pen to write about it, and her first story is indeed called “The Biggie”, about his flawless performance.  
For two years Lauren documents her secret affair with the married business man. She writes about their explosive encounters, her unwavering love, and her powerful insights. Gradually, Lauren changes. From an scarred single, to a woman totally owning her worth and her true nature. Ten years after ending her relationship in order to explore love and sex in all their forms, Lauren Harteveld becomes the ultimate mistress.

los verkrijgbaar, niet in Het Boek Benjamin:

Witte Tijgerin €5
Gids voor solitaire vrouwen die een geweldig seksleven willen en plenty energie.
Een Witte Tijgerin is een alleenstaande, onafhankelijke vrouw. Haar contact met mannen is erop gericht dat ze er energie van krijgt. Stel je voor! Nooit meer gehannes met beginnende relaties die het toch nét niet zijn. Nooit meer die morning-after backlash. Geïnspireerd op het klassieke Taoïstische werk De Witte Tijgerin van Hsi Lai, onthult deze gids;
– hoe je de touwtjes in handen houdt
– hoe je je liefdesleven gebruikt voor je plezier
– hoe je met seks je jeugdigheid herstelt.
Hij zal niet kunnen wachten om weer met je af te spreken! 

 

Former yoga teacher Lauren is still trying to grasp what hit her.
What she’d like to hit on.
And what didn’t hit her! (twice!)

I went into the weirdest state of love without interference from any of the men I have feelings for! 
Because I didn’t get an invitation to come see my lover Big.
No sign of the second man I’m in love with, Christopher.
And just to be thorough? I didn’t get that Long Awaited Email, which I know will be there some day. In which Benjamin will say he wants to see me.
God forbid not because of health issues!
I d rather have him live to be a hundred without ever seeing me. Than to have a creepy diagnosis work in my benefit and speed things up.
Benjamin is my muse, the earliest one I chose, and because I never saw him again he remains forever young and crispy. Although those are probably the two adjectives wants to be associated with the least.

From the little correspondence we had I know he started referring to himself as middle-aged from when he was barely forty. Looking absolutely STUNNING I might add.
Thank you Google, for that.
I ve always felt in my bones that we will one day meet. Not because I would contact him again.
I respect his choice for his family. 
But because his curiosity, and a longing for adventure, would take over his brilliant, rational mind. Stranger things have happened to middle aged men.
Speaking of middle aged men!
Oh my God, Christopher, right?
Yesterday, I had dinner with one of my male friends, and I insisted on telling ALL about Christopher. I stopped using this blog as a diary a couple of weeks ago, because things just got too funky.
It was a life imitates art situation, where I knew I would have to deal with my love life, without being able to share it all here.
Which is pretty hard, especially in the Christopher situation, where there’s more to it than I can admit here.
But not in the way I want to, it’s a result of something neither one of us can control. Which is not good enough for me.

I m sure I ve said this before but within the BDSM world (of which I am no part, by the way) there’s this wisdom:
A Dominant wants to be needed.
A Submissive needs to be wanted.
I need to be wanted.
And being wanted because Life is giving us an opportunity to see each other?
And then we could rationalize our feelings as if they happened accidentally? 
Not good enough.
Anyway, I was having dinner with a friend and just had to tell the Christopher story. Because he is a fan of Star Wars, I could compare my crush on Christopher to my crush on Kylo Ren, played by Adam Driver:
I had managed to miss both!

(spoiler alert for Star Wars 7 Force Awakens)
I had managed to miss my crush on Kylo Ren, because he killed Han Solo. And you DO NOT kill Han Solo! I had left the theater in awe, thinking this was Daisy Ridley!
Hello!
Since when did we suddenly turn all bisexual?
And the same thing happened with Christopher.
For months I noticed I was highly inspired to work on my career. My yogastudio. It had provided me with an income for fifteen years, and I wanted that back.
And I also worked on my career as a writer, because well I can’t not do that.
These were also the months that I wrote an application/ send in my work to the only publisher I was interested in.
The email I wrote to him was absolutely magnetic.
For months I noticed this excitement in myself; restless, and sometimes frustrated as well. Because whatever I tried, company-wise, it failed.
It was never quite right.
And I noticed this other thing. Something sexual was going on! 
But there was simply no one to put it on! 
I knew it didn’t have anything to do with Mr.Big or Benjamin;
because things had not changed with them.
The first one asking me for occasional dates, and the other one absent for years.
I still had feelings for them both, as always.
So I kept going over the other men in my life.
“No. Not him.
No. Not him either.
Tempting. But no.” 
Until one Saturday late July I think it was – and I don’t even remember what made it click! – but suddenly I saw it:
“FUCK! Mother of God! It’s Christopher!”
And I was engulfed by shame, guilt, and feeling so very very stupid, that I had managed to miss it.
Which is all so ironic, because when Christopher and me met, he fit the picture perfectly. He had the looks that would normally make me fall in love – but he was way older than me.
And he was also married, and at that time in my life I wasn’t ready to fall in love with married men, or polyamorous men.
I still assumed I could keep things simple.
So when Christopher and me met, and I wanted to ask him out, I was brutally honest. I really said something along the lines of:
“I would love to hang out with you.
But I don’t think I ll fall in love, because you’re way older.
And then men get angry because they feel rejected, and then I get angry too…
So what do you think we should do?”
Christopher looked at me and smiled.
“I ll be fine.”
We went out a few times, and then it settled at once a year.
Which had been this spring.
And we had ended up in a deserted office building, and he showed me the top floor with the view. Somewhere in that setting, where he had been a real gentleman, and had kept a lot of distance between us, leaving space between me and the doors always, that must have been where I fell in love.
Hard.
But totally unconsciously.
And that was when I started projecting it onto my company. But nothing I did, or reorganized or anything, made sense. It was the more I tried, the less things could be fixed.
Until months later, between the ashes of what once had been a thriving business, it hit me.
And it was so clear that him being rejected was indeed the last thing he had to worry about. Even if it had taken five years or so, for me to break.
Anyway, we have not seen each other anymore since. He really seems to have chosen for his wife.
God, I lost my story… where was I?
Oh! I know!
It was about the dinner with my friend, yesterday!
Either way, I told him the Kylo Ren story – where I had missed I was terribly in love (I want to be tied up by Kylo ren, and have him say “You know I can take whatever I want!!);
And also the Christopher story – who I had dismissed because of age and because we had been seeing each other for so long, and it had cost me my company. 
That I, someone who thinks of herself as self-aware, am actually shockingly unaware of my own emotions.
“I really believed I was inspired by entrepreneurship.
And motivated to be a good business woman,” I snorted.
“How stupid! The only things that motivate me are men and sex. I should know that by now.”
And he said he had enjoyed our night together, and then I got the sweetest piece of advice:
“Twice is enough, right? You’ve learned your lesson. Don’t make it three.”
When I got home I found an email from the publisher. Three months after I had written it, I had finally gotten an answer.
I hesitated to open it, after such a great night out. I had felt elevated from just talking about Christopher, reliving the strange series of events this year.
I didn’t want my energy to plummet, and go to bed on a low.
Nor did I want it to spin out of control in excitement, and lose a night sleep over it that way.
But most of all, I didn’t want to lose my lust for writing.
Not now that I had finally given up the yoga studio, and went all in on my biggest passion.
I had no idea how demotivated I would get from a rejection.
So I did something I ve done a couple of times in the past few months. Every time I had to do a scary thing;
Do it with Benjamin.
He’s like my muse, my imaginary partner that helps me to create the life of my dreams. Be the person I want to be.
“We can do this together,” I said as I sat down and started my computer.
I didn’t want to read the email on my phone. It was too important for that.
And the ghost of Benjamin telepathically joined me, and I said to him:
“Whatever happens, I m going to keep writing.”
“Say it again,” he said, standing next to me.
“Whatever happens, I’m going to keep writing.”
“Third time, for good measure.”
“Whatever happens, I’m going to keep writing.”
I opened the email, and it was a rejection. And I felt so relieved, so detached. I was even kind of happy that I could keep self-publishing, and do things my way.
Not have people interfering or pulling at me.
Because all I wanted to do, was writing.
Men.
And sex.
I did know that by now.

<3LSH
An unexamined life is not worth living

Jimmy, Jimmy is the twenty-seventh chapter from Project M. 

Want to know what happens next?
The subscribe button is somewhere on the right.
or follow Twitter ; or Facebook
NEW connect on Linkedin

BOOK SHOP
Gives a 25% discount on all prices
Select your store f.e. Nederland or United States
with the flag in the upper right corner.

spotlight on:
Het Boek Benjamin
verzameld werk Engels en Nederlands
2006-2016

Een meisje vrijt met een jongen en een homoseksuele man. Naast het overweldigende verlangen, is ze zich hyperbewust van de risico’s. Zal haar lust het winnen van de angst?
Zo opent het magnum opus van LS Harteveld.
Na de coming of age novelle Mango, duik je in het dagboek van een yoga docent. En hier blijken de fictieve karakters uit Mango bestaande personen.
Benjamin keert zelfs boek na boek weer terug. Maar wat is de waarheid?
En wie is Benjamin?
Het laatste boek gaat over haar affaire met een getrouwde man die ze Mr. Big noemt.
Waardoor de vraag rijst; Is hij Benjamin?
Heeft LS Harteveld haar muze in bescherming genomen en zijn identiteit veranderd? Of heeft ze een nieuwe liefde gevonden? Een vrouw leunt over een tafel. Ze is naakt, op haar blinddoek na.
Haar minnaar rekt haar grenzen op tot het uiterste van wat nog passend is, in dit spel der geesten. Misschien gaat hij eroverheen, dat blijft in het midden. Maar 25 jaar na de eerste scene, is één ding duidelijk;
de lust heeft gewonnen.

Levering in Nederland

De goedkoopste manier om mijn werk te kopen is via de uitgeverij – 
In verband met problemen met de pakjesdiensten én mijn eigen postbus,
kan ik helaas geen boeken meer opsturen.
Maar ik heb ze nog wel.
Je kunt hier beneden de beschrijvingen lezen of mijn boeken
bekijken via de webwinkel en daarna bestellen via mail:
onder mijn eigen naam
Suzanne s_beenackers@hotmail.com
Betaling is vooraf via mijn privérekening, en overdracht op het station van Nijmegen.
Signeren gratis uiteraard!

Minimale bestelling € 10
Als je een bon wilt, moet je via de uitgeverij bestellen, en niet via mij.

Hieronder het oeuvre en de prijzen.
alle boeken zijn handzaam A5, behalve Het Boek Benjamin, dat is groot studieboek formaat (soft cover) dat je open moet leggen.

Het Boek Benjamin €45
Verzameld werk boek 1 t/m 8
Beschrijving boven, losse boeken beneden. 

1. Mango, een novelle  €15
Seksuele safari, van de jaren 80 tot de zero’s.
Een stoer, technisch meisje groeit op met alleen een moeder, in de roerige jaren 80. Roken is nog van alle leeftijden, drinken idem, en seks ook zolang je bestand bent tegen voorlichtingsfolders over aids waarbij het woord AIDS in bloedspatten is geschreven.
Dat blijkt helaas teveel van ‘t goede.
Vermengd met een verleden in Afrika, en een overleden vader, ontwikkelt deze arrogante tiener een angststoornis waar geen psycholoog haar bij kan helpen. Maar ze blijft aangetrokken tot mooie jongens en homoseksuele mannen.

2. Dutch American Diary (2008-2009) €15
Yoga teacher Lauren is in love with two men; One cunning wizard and one half her age.
 The affair was secret so Lauren called him; He Who Must Not Be Named. After the dark wizard in the Harry Potter series. She tried to get over this American but after a year she only has her mistakes to show for. Including dating an Israeli spy and a Buddhist photographer.
Now her wizard obsession is back full throttle and the next disaster has already emerged;  an attractive yoga student. Young enough to be her son.
Faced with nothing but diabolic choices, Lauren confides in her best friend; the warm and friendly Lara. Despite having the same nationality as He Who Must Not Be Named, and working at the same office coven, Lara seems to lack his foul nature.
Or does she?
Once you’ve read Dutch American Diary? You’ll never ever in your life make the mistake of messing with a yoga teacher. 
~Dutch American Diary part 1

3. 22 Erotische Verhalen €15
Literaire pornografie in de geest van Anais Nin en Isabel Allende.
Ze komen en gaan; de kleurrijke personages in deze dromerige erotische wereld, waar ze je één verhaal lang deelgenoot maken van hun diepste verlangen en hun ergste pijn. Die vaker wel dan niet op magische wijze met elkaar verbonden blijken.
Grenzen worden genegeerd, lusten gebotvierd, wonden geheeld.
Sinds Anais Nin heeft geen schrijver zo onbevreesd het grijze gebied durven te betreden tussen het verbodene, het gruwelijke en het goddelijke. De lezer krijgt naast onversneden liefde en zinderende ontknopingen, ook een spiegel voorgehouden die je laat zien wat er zich afspeelt in de donkerste delen van je ziel. 

 4. LS Diary (2012-2013) €10
About three dark men and Lauren getting naked on stage. Not necessarily together.
 Being dark, smart, and handsome, a Dutch writer bears the characteristics Lauren only knows  too well. He looks exactly like her male muse and unwanted protagonist in the majority of her writing.
A published writer and sought-after talk show guest, the Dutch writer has succeeded where blogger Lauren is failing year after year. After year. She feels the weight of her unpublished manuscripts, and her failed attempts to become a writer. To make matters worse she already has one ill-natured stalker. As if the liabilities of being famous have preceded its benefits.
Lauren gets her shit together prioritizing her work, ignoring men, sex and stalkers. But will it work?  Star struck Lauren meets the celebrity in real life, and soon enough her supposedly highly efficient sex-free life includes a naked guest appearance on stage, a blow-job in a parking garage and a seven month relationship.
~LS Diary can be read as standalone or as Dutch American Diary part 2

5. De Candystop (2013) €10
Waar de Nederlandse literatuur tot stilstand komt door een Marokkaanse lekkernij.
Getergd door een rits onduidelijke medische klachten, besluit Lauren geen suiker meer te eten, geen Chardonnay meer te nemen, en geen latte macchiato’s meer te drinken.
Na een paar weken is ze zo apathisch dat ze zelfs vergeet te masturberen.
Tot een jonge Marokkaanse god op tv verschijnt die tegen Lauren zegt;
“LauRRRen! WakkeRRR woRRRden! Ik ben ook schRRRijveRRR en ik heb ook een leuk leven!”
Dat is zo. Sam doet de vier s’en. Hij schrijft, hij sport, hij sekst en hij slaapt.
Ineens weet Lauren nog steeds niet waar het naartoe moet met haar leven, maar ze is wel klaarwakker. Zeker als ze erachter komt, dat Sam binnen een week een optreden geeft bij haar om de hoek.
Sam doet haar denken aan een verboden relatie met haar leerling, iets waar ze gemengde gevoelens over heeft. Sam wil die best met haar onderzoeken, maar hij vraag een prijs…

6. Bedtime Stories (2014) €15
Facing her demons and her muse, Lauren’s sexual history gets its worthy finale.
Lauren is corresponding with Elliot, but somewhere between The Netherlands and Vegas, things have stranded. To get their project back on track Lauren resorts to strong measures: making the whole damn thing public.
Sharing eight months of her life, Lauren’s third diary reintroduces all popular characters, such as writer Rafael and his legendary mythical counterpart Benjamin. Young writer Sam and his ghost twin Valentino.
Closing the Dutch American Diary trilogy, the 1991 story lines are finally tied together. With an extremely satisfying ending. Although not in a way anyone saw coming.
 ~LS Diary can be read as standalone or as Dutch American Diary part 3

7. Mirage (2014) €5
Giving you a little dessert, with all gorgeous writers from previous books.
Lauren, the former hedonistic cougar, is home bound, mothering her little ones, sick with worry and about to get dumped by her lover. Together with autumn setting in, Lauren needs her annual Cute Writer Fix more than ever. And this year there’s five of them.
Including a lunch date with the most famous author of the Netherlands; her youth love Henry.
~Mirage can be read as standalone or as the epilogue to the Dutch American Diary trilogy.

8. Big, diaries & erotica (2015-2016)  €20
The crown to Lauren’s life; a secret affair with her Biggie.
Ten years and ten lovers have taught Lauren two things.
One: single life is a disaster.
And two: men suck at anal sex.
So when Mr.Big comes along and succeeds where all the others have failed, Lauren is euphoric. She immediately picks up her pen to write about it, and her first story is indeed called “The Biggie”, about his flawless performance.  
For two years Lauren documents her secret affair with the married business man. She writes about their explosive encounters, her unwavering love, and her powerful insights. Gradually, Lauren changes. From an scarred single, to a woman totally owning her worth and her true nature. Ten years after ending her relationship in order to explore love and sex in all their forms, Lauren Harteveld becomes the ultimate mistress.

los verkrijgbaar, niet in Het Boek Benjamin:

Witte Tijgerin €5
Gids voor solitaire vrouwen die een geweldig seksleven willen en plenty energie.
Een Witte Tijgerin is een alleenstaande, onafhankelijke vrouw. Haar contact met mannen is erop gericht dat ze er energie van krijgt. Stel je voor! Nooit meer gehannes met beginnende relaties die het toch nét niet zijn. Nooit meer die morning-after backlash. Geïnspireerd op het klassieke Taoïstische werk De Witte Tijgerin van Hsi Lai, onthult deze gids;
– hoe je de touwtjes in handen houdt
– hoe je je liefdesleven gebruikt voor je plezier
– hoe je met seks je jeugdigheid herstelt.
Hij zal niet kunnen wachten om weer met je af te spreken! 

 

 

Lauren has already brought her complicated love life back to minimalist innocence, but almost missed out on writing her masterpiece.
Or rather;
A Mistresspiece.

It was in the final 5 minutes of our coaching call when it hit me!
Creativity coach Sara and me had been going over my newfound love for my yoga studio, and my decision to write only for pleasure.
Not as a business model.
However, with writing not making any money of its own, my desire to step up, educate, entertain or even speak about being a secret mistress had vanished.
No money, no honey.
Which was fine because I was totally uninspired to curate my pieces on mistresshood and sexuality, for a book called The Big Mistress.
And felt even more hopeless about writing a comprehensive mistress guide where I would teach all the lessons I had learned along the way.
Twelve steps in becoming a mistress or something.
I don’t know.
Whatever it was, I didn’t want to write it.
And I didn’t want to compose my books from the perspective of helping people either. The thought that I had to break it down to the level where everybody had their fears dealt with and had their biggest objections addressed?
In the unlikely situation I would actually succeed making my mistress model into a self-help tool, it would be a toothless tiger.
And still put me at risk of scrutiny or social exclusion.
I just wasn’t willing to take the fall for that.
But then again, to have another framework – yet again!- slip through my fingers the moment it was ready to be released into the world?
That was painful.
Sara comforted me by saying that although I am one of those artists who has qualities throughout the whole cycle of the creative process, my true passion lies at the beginning of it.
With The Expressionist.
That is where I pick from The Void, a subject of interest. It can be something no one appreciates yet, or it can be something that others deeply respect.
It can be a sacred thing.
I snatch it out of the air.
Study it, chew on it, try things out.
I examine it, dissect it, turn it inside out, and fix the pieces temporarily, onto some sort of already existing foundation.
And then I start building it up from there.
Connecting the different pieces, and going higher and higher.
Ultimately, I take the earliest framework out from underneath it, only the finalized structure remains.
And then it is done.
The Mistress Framework for the other woman.
Or the White Tigress work for single women.
Even a yoga book I had practically all done and ready… and I never published it.
Because when it is time for it to start making its own money, and for me to illustrate  how the model can benefit you. When it is my time to guide, to listen, to understand?
All I want to do is crawl under a rock and die.
Which is why all those creative endeavors start highly productive, yet always end with me wasting months in resistance, and ultimately abandoning the project. Because I realize that I m not going to do this work that I SHOULD do.
Fuck the shoulds!
I just wasted months of my life, NOT creating what I really wanted to make. NOT being in alignment.
NOT living from soul.
And instead eyeing out this project as if it was a one liter bottle of cod-liver oil I had to gobble down before I was allowed to go on with the rest of my life, maybe.
Because my first priority would be to talk about the finished project, and guide it into the world like a baby taking its first steps. You can’t build an audience and a following unless you’re available to talk about the finished product!
But I didn’t want that cod-liver oil…. I didn’t want fame, or money. I didn’t even want to help anyone. I just wanted my life back!
And Sara?
My bold and beautiful creativity coach?
She GOT that!
She has understood a long time ago, that although I use guides myself (hiring coaching at critical stages of my life or business) I AM not a coach myself.
I am an artist.
I’m also an inspirator, an energizer, an uplifter.
YES!
I can build you up, just like those models. Using some tools and frameworks that we can ultimately take out, because they’re no longer needed.
That’s when you are standing on top of the mountain, and you spread your wings.
And you can fly.
We will both delighted at how magnificent you have become.
But I’m only good with people who know they want to fly. Who are CONVINCED they can fly, and just need someone to show them the hows.
But even all that?
Is not my task as a writer, not as an artist.
Here, I want to express freely.
No wonder I look at all those helpful books I could write, based on everything that I now know, as if they’re a death sentence. The thought of creating a book on a subject that I have outgrown, is almost blasphemy.
And then I saw it!
“Sara! It just hit me! I know what it is!”
I yelled into our Zoom connection, excitedly jumping up and down my chair.
“I know the answer, I really do!”
When we started working together, Sara made me fill out a creative framework
and it brought up the most peculiar result…. at the far end of the creative process.
It was the phase where you share your work with the world.
And although I hit some marks here and there, that would help me to get my work across, I felt the biggest emotional connection to the final personality marker.
The Disruptor.
It is the one who weakens and ultimately destroys existing structures of power or social conventions.
It takes down anything false or redundant.
And contrary to a guide a Disruptor leaves chaos and doesn’t offer any solutions. His gift is that he releases you from the lies you’ve been living in.
“It’s just like what Alexander Mc.Queen said about his fashion shows, Sara!”
He had defended his bloody, misogynistic fashion shows with titles like “Jack the Ripper stalks his victims” and “Highland Rape” by stating:
I don’t want you to walk out feeling you’ve just had Sunday lunch!
I want you to be repulsed or exhilarated. As long as it’s an emotion.
“Sara, that’s my final stage of a project!
It’s a show, a one-off thing.
It’s where I speak my whole truth and in the process blow everything up!”
So that there will be a void, from which new life, new art, will be born again.

NB: within an hour after my call with Sara, I offered The Mistress a place behind my desk. I asked her to tell us everything she knows.
And to not spare us.
A Mistress Speaks.

<3LSH
An unexamined life is not worth living

Mindset Yoga: de echte life makeover (Nijmegen)

NEW connect on Linkedin

Want to know what happens next?
The subscribe button to this diary, and The Mistress Speaks, is somewhere on the right.
or follow Twitter ; or Facebook

Live to tell is the twenty-fifth chapter from Project M. 

tenth anniversary of the book that changed my life!

Summer 2008 I started writing in English.
Dutch American Diary 
Just like now, I was in love with two men. And just like now, they were both taken.
And – yes, just like now –  I had no idea where life would take me.
This 2008 diary became the only thing that offered stability during a time where I had just left my partner after fourteen years and the two new men were driving me crazy.
A book about starting over in your mid-thirties and reinventing yourself as a lover;
As a woman;
And as a vengeful fury from hell.

Als je Nederlands bent is 22 erotische verhalen een aanrader.
Maar je kunt natuurlijk ook gewoon de hele shop leegkopen.

BOOK SHOP

These are my English titles:
Dutch American Diary 2008-2009  €15
LS Diary 2012-2013                                € 10
Bedtime Stories 2014                            €15
Mirage 2014                                               €5
Big, diaries and erotica 2015-2016 € 20
Get a 25% discount on all prices in the shop.
Select your store f.e. Nederland or United States
with the flag in the upper right corner.

Lauren has grown tired of her badass mistress act, and comfortably snuggles into her new image of the girl next door. Just in time to give that exciting persona back to its rightful owner! 

On my second night at the same bar – accidentally two friends had asked me on a date – the bartender brought me (underscore me!) my cutlery for my (underscore my!) pizza, and apologized:
“I don’t dare to place a second set of cutlery on your table.”
Like many bars, it had been under the impression that people enjoyed sharing food.
Which I didn’t.
On the first night, when serving the pizza, the waiter had said my pizza tasted so good, I should give a piece to my friend. And then my friend could let me taste from her dish.
I looked at him, jaw dropping, and said:
“Anybody who knows me – even remotely – knows I don’t share food.”
He had gotten the message, obviously.
The funny thing is that at the end of this second night, he said:
“See you tomorrow!”
“Noooo! Tomorrow I really won’t be here! This was just a coincidence.”
But a third friend just texted me, if I could make it tonight!
So I ll be going for my third pizza within an hour.
The reason I absolutely didn’t plan on going out tonight, was because I already had my social life covered for today. I had a date with someone I had met through social media.
This is what I thought she would be like:
At least fifteen years younger than me.
Extremely shy or perhaps autistic.
Looking up to me.
The only thing I knew for sure was that she was highly intelligent.
This is how she really was:
My age.
She threw herself at me with a kiss, apologizing:
“I m sorry, I m a hugger.”
She was the most worldly, easy going and exciting woman you could possibly imagine. And her ideas were A-MA-ZING!
I used to have a friend who was at the same level of awesomeness, but she drifted out of my life years ago. Saving the world on another continent.
This new friend made me just want to suck up every word she spoke. Her entire energy, everything.
I suddenly felt how thirsty I had been to be in the company of someone like her.
Someone like me, in the sense that she is charismatic (oh yes- I will give myself that credit!) but who actually has a life to back that shit up.
Here’s my life:
Living alone with cat, anti-social, hates to leave the house.
Here’s her life:
You try to pin that down, and you just lost.
She’s one of those people who can’t be bothered with material possessions or the safety of a relationship, and who’s on the verge of turning her whole life upside down. Always.
We did share a love for “bad” boys;
Men who seemed to have escaped from the Dutch habit of becoming completely docile in the company of their partner. I told her about a foreign girl I used to know, who had spent two years here for her studies.
She only knew three Dutch words:
Onder de plak.
Which means something like henpecked, or whipped.
And she had been totally disgusted by seeing her foreign male friends “turn” onder de plak as well!
I told my new friend that my lover wasn’t anything like that. That he bothers to defend himself, and immediately understands when he is being manipulated.
You see, I don’t like to boss around, or project my fears onto him, or anything. But sometimes I slip, and something leaves my mouth that I immediately regret.
It’s so wonderful to then “have” a man (ha! you never have these men of course!) who responds like he just got stung and immediately calls you out on it:
“Hey! Stop that!”
Foreign women, on the other hand, were usually delighted with Dutch men! Who made reliable, peaceful householders.
And my new friend and me wondered if we could trade them.
Our Dutch men to the Mediterranean countries and South America. Where they would make fantastic husbands.
And invite their bad boys to come live here with us, where they would be appreciated for their exotic, Don Juan nature.
On our way home to the station we touched on the subject of my submissiveness in bed: something she had a good laugh about.
Especially when I said I didn’t like to have normal sex where “all these things are expected of me.”
I wanted to surrender completely, and be possessed and dominated. I didn’t want any responsibility.
And she explained to me, that was probably why I had such strong boundaries. Because indeed, we had shared multiple stories (non sexual) where in the exact same situation, she had had a go-with-the-flow attitude;
And I had pushed back and successfully claimed a position of power.
The pleasure I got in the bedroom, from submitting fully to a lover, could only exist because I defended my boundaries in real life, with iron fist.
I complimented the waiter, that he had remembered that I was going to eat the pizza by myself.
He said:
“Sure. Like in Friends. Joey doesn’t share food.”

<3LSH
An unexamined life is not worth living

Mindset Yoga: de echte life makeover (Nijmegen)

NEW connect on Linkedin

Want to know what happens next?
The subscribe button to this diary is somewhere on the right.
or follow Twitter ; or Facebook

Papa don’t preach is the twenty-fourth chapter from Project M. 

tenth anniversary of the book that changed my life!

Summer 2008 I started writing in English.
Dutch American Diary 
Just like now, I was in love with two men. And just like now, they were both taken.
And – yes, just like now –  I had no idea where life would take me.
This 2008 diary became the only thing that offered stability during a time where I had just left my partner after fourteen years and the two new men were driving me crazy.
A book about starting over in your mid-thirties and reinventing yourself as a lover;
As a woman;
And as a vengeful fury from hell.

Als je Nederlands bent is 22 erotische verhalen een aanrader.
Maar je kunt natuurlijk ook gewoon de hele shop leegkopen.

BOOK SHOP

These are my English titles:
Dutch American Diary 2008-2009  €15
LS Diary 2012-2013                                € 10
Bedtime Stories 2014                            €15
Mirage 2014                                               €5
Big, diaries and erotica 2015-2016 € 20
Get a 25% discount on all prices in the shop.
Select your store f.e. Nederland or United States
with the flag in the upper right corner.

“When in love, have sex.
When not in love, don’t.”
After twelve years of analyzing her sexual preferences: Lauren realizes it really was that simple!
She feels like a new person.

Last night when we picked up the bill, the bartender asked us:
“And? Got plans for tonight?”
“Going to finish my blogpost,” I answered truthfully.
“Will I be in it?” he asked.
“Not unless you’re going to have a deep emotional impact on me. Can you do that?”
We laughed it off, but it was true though.
Yesterday’s blogpost marked the ending of an era where I had called my blog a diary, inspired by real life.

Over the past months I had to alter so many things, that I had lost all emotional involvement with my story. It was as if I had met Brad Pitt in real life because I had become friends with Angelina Jolie;
But in order to protect their identities I had to write about it as if I ran into Ryan Gosling at the supermarket:
It was just stupid.

And what I had not even shared – when explaining my choice to go dark when it came to sharing my personal life – was that there had been a series of events that were simply too FAR OUT to alter in order to write about them.
For example: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt getting back together and asking me to be a bridesmaid on their second wedding. 
It really was already a life imitates art situation, where the unbelievable had happened.

Altering it, to make it unrecognizable, would make it impossible for me to keep the facts straight for my story! And besides, altering HOW?
Everything was still in progress!
I had no idea in which way I could bend the truth, without screwing up the narrative.

So in the end I just decided to see it as a sign, that my life had become to complicated and secretive to keep a diary.
It was time to turn inward.
Yesterday’s post marked the beginning of the new era, where I would only write about my inner-world and avoid the pitfalls of revealing the identities of the men I slept with, wanted to sleep with, or even worse:
Didn’t want to sleep with.

And I also avoided the trap of revealing too much personal information, that wasn’t mine to share.
After posting it, I slept like a baby, and today I felt so light and peaceful.
The weight of secrecy and the heaviness of being a mistress;
It had all dropped off me.
From now on, I was a girl next door, who made love when she was in love.
And didn’t if she wasn’t.

Life really was that simple.

<3LSH
An unexamined life is not worth living

Mindset Yoga: de echte life makeover (Nijmegen)

NEW connect on Linkedin

Want to know what happens next?
The subscribe button to this diary is somewhere on the right.
or follow Twitter ; or Facebook

True Blue is the twenty-third chapter from Project M. 

tenth anniversary of the book that changed my life!

Summer 2008 I started writing in English.
Dutch American Diary 
Just like now, I was in love with two men. And just like now, they were both taken.
And – yes, just like now –  I had no idea where life would take me.
This 2008 diary became the only thing that offered stability during a time where I had just left my partner after fourteen years and the two new men were driving me crazy.
A book about starting over in your mid-thirties and reinventing yourself as a lover;
As a woman;
And as a vengeful fury from hell.

Als je Nederlands bent is 22 erotische verhalen een aanrader.
Maar je kunt natuurlijk ook gewoon de hele shop leegkopen.

BOOK SHOP

These are my English titles:
Dutch American Diary 2008-2009  €15
LS Diary 2012-2013                                € 10
Bedtime Stories 2014                            €15
Mirage 2014                                               €5
Big, diaries and erotica 2015-2016 € 20
Get a 25% discount on all prices in the shop.
Select your store f.e. Nederland or United States
with the flag in the upper right corner.

After not writing for over a week, Lauren comes up, gasping for air.
But with purpose.

This is not the original version of the blogpost Into the Groove. Which was written in draft on my offline laptop on Saturday September 22, with the intention of doing the editing/cleaning up/ posting bit later.
That always takes so much time!

I thought I could get away with simply writing my posts in draft – and post them later, when I had more time.
And not just for LS Harteveld!
For my yoga site too, I wrote an offline blog post on Sunday.
Yet despite being in favor of the idea of writing offline, both blogposts were a fluke and I was so happy I hadn’t posted them.
For different reasons.

But the fact that it happened two days in a row, to two separate blog posts, written in two different languages and for two different blogs?
That convinced me that offline writing was a waste of time.
That it brought out the worse of my writing capabilities.

The reason I was happy I hadn’t used my yogapost, was because it was just SO ugly! The topic, the revelations, simply everything about it.
I went on a holiday, and I was shook to my core thinking about the ugliness of what I had created. Waiting for me on an offline laptop, in order to be transferred and sent out into the world.
Lucky me, I had an opportunity to pull that back.

The only thought that was even more frightening on this holiday, were the thoughts about the other offline blog post I had written!
The one for this blog, LS Harteveld.
It had been in the style I have been using here for the past couple of months, on Project M. Diary like-posts, inspired by my real life and in particular the men in my life.
But I have altered these “truths” significantly!
Which gives problems of its own (more about that later), but that was not the biggest flaw of Saturday’s post.

Because this particular diary post about the two men I am in love with, had been too close to the truth!
If I had not written a draft offline, but instead had posted it immediately – in one go, like almost all my posts – that thing would have gone online!
Way too close to revealing the identity/identities of the men I am in love with.
The thought made me sick to my stomach.

Not that revealing something that makes you sick to your stomach, is a reason not to do it!
Not at all.
But it should be purposeful.
For example:
As of today I will only write for this blog, the one you’re reading now.
And cancel all writing for my yoga blog, which has been the worse place to do soul searching and share myself with the world.
My yogablog has been the pinnacle of risk-free writing.
But here?
I can write everything.
Dig deep and expose my soul until its deepest, darkest layers, without everyone from my neighbor to the admin employee from the housing corporation, reading it too.

And I am ready to give all, including the things that make me sick to my stomach. So it’s not that I intend to stay away from the edges, and only write about things that are either in the past, or within my comfort zone.
Far from that.

But the “deleted” post, that was too close to the truth with regard to the identity to the men in my life, didn’t have anything to do with my personal development.
It had to do with unintentionally, revealing identities.
Which brought me to another aspect of my DIARY writing.
After doing this for twelve years I am just done with it.

Not just dealing with the secret mistress/ oh don’t tell anyone, side of keeping a diary.
No.
I’m done with ALL of it.
With writing columns about dates or events.
And about friends who may or may not like me writing about it.
I’m even done with positioning myself as a secret mistress.
I know that I’ve advocated for years that being a secret mistress is a sexual preference and one about which I have so much to tell!
Speaking about mistresshood would make women with the same set of sexual preferences as me, very happy.
Women with a love for secrecy, unavailable men, and who are submissive in bed, definitely submissive …yes!
My story about the sexual nature of a mistress would help them.
But even that is something I don’t want to do anymore.

For the past year or so I’ve been convinced that I could increase my impact, if I would clean up my diary-writing-mistress act into something along the lines of:
“Hi! I’m the Good Mistress! I’m here to help!”
Write guides. Make YouTube videos. Sell coaching.
It would even allow me to ditch the diary writing and regain freedom in my personal life. Have privacy.
I would be a professional from now on. Someone who had been the mistress of someone she referred to as Mr.Big, until summer 2018. And after that I took my private life off the radar and only spoke about it past tense.
And only if it was relevant to SERVE.
Bad.
BAD.
B.A.D.
Idea!

The draft horror post- my potential data leak! – confirmed for me;
Yes!
I WAS done trying to rewrite my personal life, changing enough names and locations, professions, situations, so that that NO ONE (not even the men themselves!) could recognize them.

I was done because by altering so much, keeping a diary had lost its charm.
I couldn’t put enough reality in it to make it satisfying for me.
Because it wasn’t a problem for the reader that the second man I was in love with (Christopher) was “played” by Idris Elba because I used Idris Elba photos with those posts.
– originally, because these will be removed at some point – Lauren 2026) –
But it was a problem for me, because that was NOT how he looked.

Nor were Christophers wife and the wife of Mr.Big members of sketchy semi-religious organizations that could harm me.
That was simply a story-line I had setup to describe the risks of repercussions I was exposed to. It was a framework, a story, to cover for any aggression against me if my position as a secret mistress became known. And also the economic losses such as assets, reputation, business.

But the wives of the two men I am in love with are not Scientologists or sectarians, and if they were I wouldn’t know because I never researched them nor do I know them.
So in the end two non-posted blog posts, one butt-ugly for my yoga blog and one way-too-revealing one for LS Harteveld – in combination with a few days off and fresh sea air, gave me tremendous value because they gave me HUGE insights!

Here’s the decisions I made after “Draft Post Gate I and II”:

1. I will no longer write for my Dutch blog/ yoga blog

The word Dutch is already key here…
I ve honestly considered quitting my English writing!
Quit all LS Harteveld and instead focus entirely on my Dutch work. Be 100% there, revealing ALL, regardless of the consequences!
But it’s simply not possible.
I would ALWAYS need to write in English somewhere.

But the other reason I m not going to write for my Dutch yoga blog anymore is in fact that the consequences are bigger there:
It’s under my real name.
Therefor, people who have no interest in my work, but just happen to Google my name can also read it.
And I don’t like that.

I m pretty open there, but I reserve the best, most honest parts for this site, for this account. Because my mailman doesn’t read it.
And I could continue writing the simple, barely-scratching -the-surface posts for my yoga blog, but I m simply not interested to keep writing pretty bland and generic coaching posts.
Sure! I ve kept them as interesting as possible.
But they will never be GREAT.
No one will ever read a yoga blog post, written to not set off the even most random person who Googles me, and go;
“Wow! That is so full on!”
Which is why I will never write for my Dutch blog again.

3. I m quitting the diary thing

I m quitting the diary thing, because I m no longer inspired to write about what happens in real life, and make some cool story out of it.
Especially since I have to alter the truth, when it comes to sex and love, to the extend that I m no longer emotionally involved in it.
I need Idris Elba covering for us!
That’s a sign you’ve strayed way too far from the truth.
And events that don’t have anything to do with sex or love?
I ve written MORE than my share about those things. It already filled me an entire bookstore.

Maybe I should say:
I m quitting the diary writing about the outer world,
In favor of writing about my inner world.
Which brings me to quitting the mistress thing;

3. I m quitting the mistress thing

I m quitting because “mistress” is starting to feel like a too tight definition, and a cause I m no longer interested in.
This holiday I was feeling all sorry for myself, that the second man I m in love with is yet another married man. And that if we would hit it off, whether once or in secret, or on an open and more permanent basis;
Everybody would condemn me.
They would ALL treat the entire situation like:
“He was a happily married man, and then she came along, and now it’s all ruined.”
You know what? I m no longer available for that.

I will remove ALL references to me being a mistress, from all my profiles;
When I publish my new book, I will call it diaries or columns.
But never use the word mistress again.
Over the past couple of weeks, in addition to trying to come to terms with being in love with another married man, I also looked for/ considered getting a second lover because I m seeing my lover Mr.Big so little.
And you know what I concluded?
That sex without being crazy in love, means nothing to me.

EVEN if Mr.Big would end things, and I would become single, and therefor have no sex at all?
95% Chance I ll take the no-sex option.
Not the cute guy-great sex.
Not the great guy- fantastic sex.
Not the friend with benefits.
And so on.

I would wait until someone I was in love with wanted to make love to me.
THAT’S IT!
That’s my whole sexuality right there.
Twelve years since I left my longterm relationship in order to find love and get to know myself sexually, and this really is what my entire philosophy on sex is:
When in love, have sex.
When not in love, don’t.
And I m never going to explain, reframe, or apologize for that ever EVER again! Because there’s nothing to apologize for.

And I will curate the work I made during my mistress years.
But none of the posts that have to do with me being a mistress, and explaining or even defending mistresshood, will be included.
I m not going to publish those specific mistress posts in a book, nor create a guide on how to become a mistress or such.
I might even take them down, I don’t know yet.

My work, from now on, will be me writing about my dreams, goals, ideas, wishes, desires. And sure, I ll use stories to spice it up.
But they will only be about things and people and experiences that move me.
I will write about being in love for sure.
And sex.
But no names, no places, no situations, not even fake ones.
It’s all gone.

From now on, it’s just me, and my emotions.
No label.

<3LSH
An unexamined life is not worth living

Mindset Yoga: de echte life makeover (Nijmegen)

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Into the Groove is the twenty-second chapter from Project M. 
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tenth anniversary of the book that changed my life!

Summer 2008 I started writing in English.
Dutch American Diary 
Just like now, I was in love with two men. And just like now, they were both taken.
And – yes, just like now –  I had no idea where life would take me.
This 2008 diary became the only thing that offered stability during a time where I had just left my partner after fourteen years and the two new men were driving me crazy.
A book about starting over in your mid-thirties and reinventing yourself as a lover;
As a woman;
And as a vengeful fury from hell.

Als je Nederlands bent is 22 erotische verhalen een aanrader.
Maar je kunt natuurlijk ook gewoon de hele shop leegkopen.

BOOK SHOP

These are my English titles:
Dutch American Diary 2008-2009  €15
LS Diary 2012-2013                                € 10
Bedtime Stories 2014                            €15
Mirage 2014                                               €5
Big, diaries and erotica 2015-2016 € 20
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