Friday, October 24, 2008

Who Else Wants to be Danielle Steel?

So I've never read Danielle Steel, but apparently I'm one of the few who hasn't, because I was on her website the other day and learned that every one of her books has been a bestseller! Every one! She was on the New York Times bestseller list for over 390 consecutive weeks! That's over 7 and a half years!

Naturally I figured that she was a life-long recluse that lived alone and did nothing from dawn to dusk but write. I mean, how else are you going to pump out as many books as she has (73 to date)? Some of us have to have lives, otherwise we'd be that prolific, right? Wrong. She has 9 children (9 children!), runs two foundations to help causes she believes in, and she's a guest curator at an art gallery in San Francisco. Ms. Steel, you're making some of us look bad.

She's also had time to be married 5 times (though she claims only two were "serious" marriages--I'm still trying to decide what that means). When does she date? Where is her time machine located? How can I get my hands on one of those? Maybe it's built into her 1946 typewriter that she writes all her manuscripts on. (Who is translating those into digital documents? I guess she doesn't have to worry about sending out online submissions to agents and editors.)

Danielle Steel has become my cattle prod since I found her website. When I don't feel like putting in my one measly hour of writing a day, I simply remind myself that Danielle Steel not only puts in up to 20 hours of writing a day, she also works on 3-5 books at once, probably while simultaneously bouncing a child on one knee and telekinetically doing the dishes and scrubbing the toilet. If she can do all that, I can definitely devote an hour of my day to writing. How else am I going to break her Guinness World Record of having the most consecutive weeks on the New York Times bestseller list?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well, of course she's so rich, she can pay people to clean her toilets, do her housework, etc. My guess is that she also has a full time person to help with the kids. Sigh. Such a charmed life :)