Danielle Steel
© Brigitte Lacombe

Tough as Steel

Danielle Steel’s accomplishments speak for themselves. She’s written 204 books, including more than 180 novels, 18 children’s books, five nonfiction books and one book of poetry. Her books have been translated into 45 languages and are sold all over the world.

In this Connection exclusive, she talks about her prolific career and more.

by IRENE MIDDLEMAN THOMAS

Steel has been in Guinness World Records three times for being on the New York Times bestseller lists longer than anyone else, and France named her an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters as well as a knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour.

Yet despite her success, she still worries every time she sends a manuscript to her editor, including her latest, The Wedding Planner. “I think, ‘Oh, she’s going to hate it.’ I’m a very anxious person, always worrying about things,” says Steel, adding that to this day she is still stunned and thrilled when her editor is pleased. “I really try not to rest on my laurels, and I never take my success for granted.

“I’m just a normal person. I don’t play ‘star,’ I’m not a diva, and I’m very shy.”

Left: Steel writes all of her novels on Ollie, a 1946 typewriter. Right: The self-described workaholic enjoys a rare moment of relaxation.
Photo courtesy of Danielle Steel

Falling in love with writing

When the Connection caught up with Steel, she was in Paris, where she lives for about eight months a year. The remainder of her time is spent in San Francisco. “I love living in France. I’m steeped in French culture. In some ways, I am more French than anything else,” says Steel, who considers herself bicultural. “It’s confusing … because I am certainly American too.”

After college, Steel worked in advertising and public relations, and wrote as a freelancer for several magazines. “I had written poetry when I was young and in my teens. The publisher of one of the magazines said I should try writing a book. So I did. And I fell in love with it.”

That first book, Going Home, was written when Steel was 19 years old. It deals with a woman facing a tragedy that forces her to confront her past in order to decide her future.

“I knew with that first book that I had found my niche and work I loved. I wrote a second book as soon as I finished the first one, and I haven’t stopped since,” she tells the Connection.

Work ethic

Steel considers herself a workaholic. “I work too hard and don’t play enough,” she admitted in a 2012 interview in Vanity Fair. That said, she admits to writing even more now that her nine children are adults and living on their own.

“I have a rigid sense of discipline and tremendous work ethic,” she says. Indeed, she claims to write nonstop for up to 22 hours, adorned in her signature cashmere nightgowns. “They make for very unglamorous work,” she laughs.

While Steel somewhat laments her self-imposed rigid work ethic, she does admit to a little pleasure that many of us share. Steel is an avowed chocoholic. “I am sitting here right now with a Scharffen Berger dark chocolate bar,” she tells me, with a chuckle. “You can get anything from me with chocolate!”

Danielle Steel promoting her 2021 novel The Affair
© Brigitte Lacombe

Just her type

Quirky but true: Steel writes on a 1946 Olympia manual typewriter, named Ollie, which she bought many years ago for $20. Since then, she has bought many more used models in order to replace parts. Yes, she owns a laptop, but all of her books are written on the typewriter. “I am deeply, powerfully and sincerely technologically challenged. I’m happy this way, unconfused and entirely unmodern,” she explains on her blog at Daniellesteel.net.

Steel often is immersed in writing five to seven books simultaneously, and each requires its own meticulous research, which is accomplished with the assistance of a researcher. “All of the details in my books that relate to real life are true,” she says. For example, 2016’s The Award deals with the efforts of courageous people in a French town who hid and transported thousands of French Jewish children to safety from the Nazis during World War II. And 1988’s Zoya is a story with many historical facts about the Russian Revolution, focusing on the czar’s family, particularly a cousin who escaped to Paris and eventually became a ballerina.

“I think one of the strong appeals of [my] books is that the [settings] and the situations are familiar, so the readers can relate to them. The same things, both good and bad, happen that happen to all of us,” explains Steel. “I think it is the familiarity of the circumstances and emotions that make people feel comfortable. They get enchanted and engaged, and in the end, it all wraps up.”

She notes, “I am much smarter in my books than in my own life. I can make it all work out the way I want it to, but in my own life, not so much.”

While she keeps her plots distinct, her books are known for their strong, independent women and emotionally resonant storylines with a focus on human interactions, especially familial relationships.

Meaningful message

The author’s work offers persistent messages of resilience and hope. Steel has endured a hefty share of life’s struggles and strives to give her readers motivation through her characters.

One of Steel’s sons died by suicide in 1997 at age 19, inspiring Steel to write His Bright Light: The Story of Nick Traina and A Gift of Hope: Helping the Homeless to commemorate him.

The proceeds of the books’ sales have funded the Nick Traina Foundation (nicktrainafoundation.com), which is dedicated to battling mental illness, mostly in the San Francisco area. It focuses on suicide and child abuse prevention.

Steel’s decades-long agent, Mort Janklow, who died last year at 91, urged her to embrace and promote resilience. “He told me, ‘It doesn’t matter how wounded you are; you just have to get back in the game.’ It is so true,” she says. She adds that she realizes the characters she writes about are role models for her readers. “I very much want to give people hope.

“I care about the things that happen to all of us. We are all concerned about the same stuff. No one is exempt,” Steel adds. “I try to be positive, you know, ‘victory at a price.’ In life, there are bad surprises, but there are also good surprises.”

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