From Vanity Fair:
Danielle Steel’s wildly popular novels have made her a household name.
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Ahead of her new book, Fairytale, being published next month, take a look at where Steel’s best-sellers are brought to life, at her desk in San Francisco.
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My beloved, partially handmade 1946 Olympia standard typewriter. I’ve written 163 books on this typewriter, and it’s still going strong.
I love these mementos that my children have given me for good luck. They touch my heart but do not help my creative process. The desktop is so crowded that, when I’m writing, I have to take them off the desk until I finish the book.
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On the walls of my office are framed covers of my books and sayings that I love. One favorite, since I work very late: “What hath night to do with sleep?”
Art done by my children when they were little.
This magnet says, “#1 Mom,” and was a Mother’s Day gift.
Link to the rest at Vanity Fair
PG says you’ll want to click through to see a photo of her desk in the OP.
way too small a desk for opening research volumes, spreading out, secure drinks, etc. Stuffy, prim. Big output. Dont quite believe it all comes from that cramped space.
I was under the impression that she dictated her books.
You’re thinking of Barbara Cartland. She’s the one who dictated all of her romances.
That desk has to be one of the ugliest examples of ego-enhancement I’ve ever seen. Never read any of her books, and that alone would turn me off.
“To each their own” said the old woman as she kissed the cow. (A family saying about preferences and opinions. 🙂 )
71 years old and has written 167 books … she’s damn-well earned that desk!
o_0
I’ve never read any of her books, but that desk is sending me to the Kindle Store for my first.
Excellent writer, I have a couple of her books. Not a fan, but that is the genre, not her.
I’d never be able to go back to a manual (or even a typewriter, probably) – but I am going to copy her saying for my own wall.
What Writing Observer said. I nibbled a few, but the genre doesn’t do much for me. Sort of like Ann River Siddons, who really knows how to use landscape and place in stories, but her genre doesn’t thrill me.
The desk is really cute.
Age 71 and 167 books. That’s about four books a year. On a manual typewriter!
I’ll bet the publisher pays for her data entry.
Unless she works off the corner of that desk, the typewriter is just for decoration.
She said she has written her books on that typewriter so I’m guessing her desk set up in the picture is just for show, not for working. Looks like chaos to me.
She also said that she has to clear the desk of tchotchkes when she is actively writing a novel. We’re definitely seeing the carefully “posed” desk. 😉