Who's Afraid of Danielle Steel?

She's one of the world's most successful authors, but is she sincere?

“You can play a shoestring if you’re sincere.” John Coltrane

Danielle Steel scares a lot of authors. She’s a colossus of sorts, known for having four or five books going at the same time. She doesn’t take breaks. She doesn’t even read. She claims her writing comes from “the gut not the cash register.” If you’re trying to create something of substance, then, sure, it’s from the gut. If you’re producing seven books a year, it’s a factory.

She’s a good factory considering she made the Guinness Book of World Records for the most consecutive weeks on The New York Times bestseller list (381). Even if you’ve been at this for fifty years, like she has, that’s an enormous output. No wonder she works 20 to 22 hours a day. Anything less and she’d be, I don’t know, James Patterson.

Steel has never been guilty of over-analyzing. She’s a plot-driven writer. If you’re looking for substance, Steel isn’t so much substantive and speculative.

Elmore Leonard used to work 12 to 14 hours a day, claiming that’s all he could manage and still be able to see. Somehow Steel does it and isn’t the least bit myopic. She claims, when she finishes a book, she’s already starting her next one. That’s hardly enough time to read your reviews, let alone understand the characters you’re about to commit to paper.

Steel has never been guilty of over-analyzing. She’s a plot-driven writer. If you’re looking for substance, Steel isn’t so much substantive and speculative. Like any broker on Wall Street, she knows people, knows how they invest their time, and knows they like a sure thing.

If anyone’s sure of anything, it’s Danielle Steele. Twenty-two of her books have been adapted into movies, two receiving Golden Globe nominations. She’s the embodiment of the “page turner,” a real life writeaholic who works in a cashmere nightgown and eats mini chocolate bars.

Maybe that’s why Steel shared the same agent with Agatha Christie. Both created their own factories.

As we all know, though, page-turners aren’t necessarily gutsy or sincere. Often they’re templates. Everything’s blocked out, much like a director blocks out a scene. Steel makes no apologies for that. People may question her sincerity but they can’t question her bottom line. She’s in the intrigue business. Intrigue trumps sincerity. Maybe that’s why Steel shared the same agent with Agatha Christie. Both created their own factories.

Neither are — or were — sincere writers, which separates successful authors from remembered ones. It’s what we call literature, and it’s why Charles Dickens only wrote 19 books, Hemingway 24, and Shakespeare 38.

Sincerity is an exhausting exercise. Even someone as prolific and cash-minded as Shakespeare couldn’t put out seven plays a year and expect to probe the depths of madness and destitution. It takes a lot of personal reflection, like Dickens remembering his own childhood before creating Oliver Twist or David Copperfield. It requires personal scrutiny.

Let’s look at Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, still considered one of the best examples of modern literature. Lee wrote the book with money given to her by friends. It was her only novel, although she attempted others. None matched the quality or depth of Mockingbird.

Harper Lee wasn’t so much exhausted as limited. When another book was discovered (Go Set A Watchman), it turned out to be To Kill a Mockingbird’s first draft.

When asked why she wasn’t more prolific, Harper said that a book has to “live.” She got that from her good friend Truman Capote. To them, a “living book” could never have its integrity or sincerity questioned. After In Cold Blood, Capote couldn’t write anymore. He was exhausted. Harper Lee wasn’t so much exhausted as limited. When another book was discovered (Go Set A Watchman), it turned out to be To Kill a Mockingbird’s first draft.

Raymond Carver’s output was minimal at best, turning out only five books, consisting of 72 short stories, 306 poems and 32 pieces of non-fiction. He attempted a novel and a one-act play, but Carver was too sincere. It lead to years of alcohol abuse, divorce and menial janitorial jobs.

In music, John Coltrane devoted most of his adult life to the sincerity of notes, something he considered akin to religious awakening. Unlike Steel who still scoffs at burn-out as a “millennial disease,” Coltrane had to wait for inspiration. “I find it’s only when something’s trying to come through I really practice,” he said, “and then I don’t know how many hours. It’s all day.” During that wait, Coltrane suffered from severe heroin addiction, much like Charlie Parker. Myles Davis fired Coltrane twice for using heroin, but admitted there were few musicians as good as Coltrane.

“I put my heart and soul into my work,” Vincent Van Gogh once said, “and have lost my mind in the process.”

To say real literary figures are willing to die for their work is a bit romantic. They’re willing to abuse themselves, torment themselves and very possibly hate themselves. “I put my heart and soul into my work,” Vincent Van Gogh once said, “and have lost my mind in the process.”

He was the extreme, and a bit of a personal mutilator, but he did manage to express what possibly all artists believe. “Paintings have a life of their own,” he said, “that derives from the painter’s soul.”

There’s good reason to believe this is true, although not all writers have souls. Even the New York Times Best Sellers can be soulless. Judging from Danielle Steel’s books, she may be the greatest soulless author, but still important in one respect. Van Gogh said “a good picture is the equivalent of a good deed.” Danielle Steel may be the embodiment of a “good deed,” meaning her books keep people from worrying about their own lives.

Steel’s books ask nothing of anybody, whereas, someone like Harper Lee demanded you examine your sense of justice and humanity (as Capote did).

We’re simply passengers in someone else’s car, figuring the driver — especially if it’s Danielle Steel — knows where she’s going, and must be pretty good at driving by now.

Making people uneasy doesn’t necessarily define literature. A comic can make us uneasy. Unfortunately, romantic intrigue, unless it’s Fifty Shades of Grey, isn’t there to probe us. We’re simply passengers in someone else’s car, figuring the driver — especially if it’s Danielle Steel — knows where she’s going, and must be pretty good at driving by now.

That’s the great thing about escapism. She’s able to write as many books as she does because escapism is an easy business. Everyone knows how to escape. Everyone wants to escape. If you provide the door, nobody cares who you are, or how sincere you are. You’re showing them the door.

Another part of this is addiction, something we normally equate with drugs or alcohol. Steel’s compulsion to write may be an addiction, too. Anyone devoting 22 hours a day to anything must have underlying hang-ups, not the least of which is writing itself. While even Steel admits to good days and bad days, the bad being like “dragging an elephant across the room,” Steel believes she’s simply a storyteller “getting the words out.”

Freud would have had a field day with Steel, comparing her to a neurotic who retreats into something safe, a “womblike” existence, which is why she wears a nightgown all day. “Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity,” he wrote, which summarizes Steel’s life to a tee.

Her books are created by her own definition of romance and love and heartbreak. She’s its author and therefore controls outcomes. Being a controller makes you very secure.

A book, with it’s chapters laid out, its plot, its characters established, eliminates the ambiguity we all face in real life. In her “womblike” existence, there is no ambiguity. Her books are created by her own definition of romance and love and heartbreak. She’s its author and therefore controls outcomes. Being a controller makes you very secure.

You could call it “godlike,” or a masterful plan that can be changed or corrected with a simple stroke of the pen. If only we could all be that way. I suppose we could, but to do it daily, we’d have to give up sincerity.

Some people like Harper Lee, Raymond Carver, and Dickens weren’t prepared to do that. Steel doesn’t seem to mind at all. It’s a pretty lucrative arrangement regardless. She’ll soon have 180 books to her credit.

As Alana Stewart, ex-wife of Rod Stewart and George Hamilton once to told Steel, “It’s better to be rich and miserable than poor and miserable.”

Sincerity’s a nice thing to have, but so are royalties. As Alana Stewart, ex-wife of Rod Stewart and George Hamilton once to told Steel, “It’s better to be rich and miserable than poor and miserable.”

You can bet Danielle Steel isn’t miserable. Whether she worries about being sincere or not is another story. Nope, I can’t see her worrying about that, either.

Robert Cormack is a novelist, journalist and blogger. His first novel “You Can DLead a Horse to Water (But You Can’t Make It Scuba Dive)” is available online and at most major bookstores. Check out Skyhorse Press or Simon and Schuster for more details.