1/4/16, Brand New Year
Hi Everyone,
Happy New Year!!!! I hope that whatever you did on New Year’s eve was fun, and if you had too much fun, by now you have started to recover, and feel fresh and ready to face a brand new year, like a clean slate, ready for you to write on!! I think we all forget sometimes how much of what we do, we can determine ourselves. So we should all think about how we want this year to go, and in what direction. Do we want to slow down and take it easy, smell the roses, and not work as hard? Or rev up our engines and do more, start new projects, or a new business? Do we want to meet new people and get out more, or stay home more and not race around quite as much. Are we ready for a new relationship, or know we should end an old one if it’s not working. Do we need or want to spend more time with our kids….or have a child, or move to a new home or apartment? Look for a new job? Or work harder at the old one? Take better care of ourselves, change our hair color or our look? Or get a new puppy? Lose or gain weight? Get more exercise? The possibilities are endless, and there are always surprises and things we can’t control in life, but at least we can head in the right direction—-whatever that direction means to us.
I also want to start the new year out with a ‘correction’. It’s hard to keep up with some of the questions people ask me on the blog, and there are so many things I would like to respond to and comment on. But there was one comment I thought I should respond to. Two blogs ago, someone wrote in to ask me if I had recently married someone called “Ian Thomas Mathews” (I think that was the name???). And the simple answer to that is no, I haven’t. I don’t even know someone by that name. And I haven’t recently married anyone, and have no plans to do so. Apparently, they read about my recent remarriage on ‘Wikipedia’. I think the problem with sites like that is that people can write in whatever they want, there is no filtering system, and no fact checking. And anywhere on the internet inaccurate information appears and grows like weeds. So, no, I didn’t marry a Mr. Matthews. I recently saw on some web site my age inaccurately stated by about 10 years (more) —-I gulped at that. I went to college at 15, married at 17, and wrote my first book at 19, and have written 148 books, so sometimes people figure I must be at least 100 years old by now. And fortunately, I’m not. Elsewhere on the Internet, I’ve read that my ‘real’ name was Muriel Something or Other, which made me laugh too. My real name that I was born with (my maiden name, before I ever married) really is Danielle Steel. Once I married, I only used it on my books and used my married name in my personal life, but now that I’m divorced I’ve gone back to using Danielle Steel in my ‘real life’. I also read that my grandfather was a potato farmer, which is a respectable profession, but the grandfather they were referring to actually had a law degree, wrote 2 or 3 very boring books about the law, which he never practiced, and never worked. (in those days, ‘gentlemen’ didn’t work, so he never did). And I’ve also read that I spent my entire childhood in bed paralyzed by polio, which fortunately wasn’t the case either. I don’t know how those stories start, but they’re out there, and I guess people believe them, so I figured I should let you know that I didn’t marry anyone recently, and don’t know anyone by the name they mentioned. I shy away from using the Internet for research, because the same inaccuracies exist about history, and I am meticulous about the research in my books and so is my researcher!!! So I thought we’d get the year off to a clean start!!!
Other than that, my plans for the year include a LOT of writing, contact with you on our Facebook chats, through my blog, and on Twitter, maybe a TV appearance or two. I hope to see a lot of my kids, whenever they’re able, and enjoy life between books. I don’t have any more complicated plans than that, but that should keep me busy enough!!
I hope the new year is off to a great start for you, and that whatever plans you have for this year happen easily, and just the way you want them to!!!
I hope 2016 will be a great year for us all,
love, Danielle
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Hi Danielle. I guess my hope for this year,personally, would be to have as pleasant a new year as was the old one. I don’t foresee any major events happening in my life but that’s o k. Slow and steady is my race. I plan to read as much as possible, including a lot of your books. I’m hoping not to gain any weight if not lose. Looking forward to the new x files series,if in fact it is a series and not just a two night special. A chocolate making class with my son, a Beatles music band concert with my husband-those are events in store for my January. That and fixing a hurting tooth or two(I can’t tell if its more than one-yikes!) will be the downside if I go at all. Maybe I’ll catch you on The View promoting a new book as I did see last year! My family supposes you don’t read these comments but I’d like to think so! Janine.
Hi,Miss Danielle!!!
Never mind those untrue stories about you… Sounds like an exciting and wonderful new year for you nonetheless,I wish you very, very well, as well as all the best. And what a great writing from you, as always.God bless you more and more, Happy new year! 🙂
Bonjour Danielle !
Ma maman, qui a 91 ans, est venue passer les fêtes de fin d’année En Corse avec moi, mon mari et mes enfants ! C’était un moment de vie familiale unique et chaleureux.
Elle est très en forme et son seul problème est qu’elle ne peut plus lire à cause d’une DMLA.
Nous avons toutes les deux souvent pensé à vous parce que je lui ai fait la lecture tous les jours d’un de vos livres : “answered prayers “. Elle était si contente, et votre livre lui a beaucoup plu, en cela qu’il “sonne très juste”.
Bonne et heureuse année à vous et ceux qui vous sont chers !
hahaha…Hello, Muriel…
Danielle, i hope you have a great year.
And for my year…im planning on becoming a translator here where I work as a proofreader and getting married with my fianceé and buying or renting an apartment.
Hope this year be full of happiness and health to all of us.
Love always,
Keyla
Hi Danielle!
2016 starts well, you’re happy, serene, your mind and heart are at the top. We could talk about tsunami but as it is winter, talking avalanche!
Vivid imagination, boundless generosity and humanity, full of exciting suggestions.
And then, lo and behold, you have planned to find time to enjoy life, really?!
We no longer believed! Happy new !!!
J-C
Dear Danielle, this is the first time I have visited your website and I’ve just read your New Year Greeting, and thank you for it, and I wish you even more success (if that is possible) in all areas of your life, for this wonderful New Year.
I got a good giggle out of learning what you are NOT, have NOT and did NOT that has been published somewhere as otherwise.
My reason for looking for you on the Internet was because I know your name as a most successful author (who doesn’t), and so I wanted to learn more about you. That you wrote your first book at the age of 19 is incredible because here I am at 74 and have only just gotten up the nerve to give my first book to Balboa Press in order to self publish. My life’s dream has always been to publish a book, but I’d always put the thought aside because I’d been told it was far too difficult to ever even get your work looked at by a publisher, and then, if you did manage it, the book would be returned with a ‘no thanks’ attached, so I decided to forego the dream. Then I heard of eBooks and self publishing yet even so, after having written my book a couple of years ago, I did nothing but finally got up the courage to let someone see it.
I must admit that although your name is always mentioned when speaking about books, and seen in most bookstores, I really hadn’t realised how successful you are, Danielle, and although I am next in line to the hundred million or so others who must have congratulated you, I would like to add my own sincere congratulations for such an incredible life, and incredible amount of bringing love and excitement and joy and laughter and possibly sorrow and fear entwined, into the homes and hearts of so many people in this weird, wild and wonderful world — to many readers of whom would probably never have a chance to live the lives you give them with your words.
I hope people like my book too, and am waiting to hear the thoughts from Balboa Press. IF they think my book has merit, and can fit it into a genre (I think it fits into about 5), I will write to you again and ask if you would mind very much reading it and endorsing it for me. I know this is bold but I’ve just become so brave in sending my book off, so while I still have the strength, I am advising you of an upcoming pea. Lol. Even if that is not possible, all my other comments remain the same.
Thank you for your time in reading my letter,
Warmly,
Robyne Clark,
Australia.
Hi, I rarely if ever read anyone’s personal blog. I came across this by accident, and I expected to dislike it or not relate due to your affluent lifestyle. But I was pleasantly surprised. Your posts have tremendous depth and are peppered with great life advice. I’m impressed and will now check on regular basics for updates. Your a very “real” and genuine person, who has thoughts worth reading..