NEW YORK – After dozens of best-selling novels, Danielle Steel still has words to spare: She’s starting a blog.

“It’s like a letter to a friend, and fun to be able share something and say, ‘Gee I did this,'” says Steel, 61, whose run of hits includes three in this year alone: “Honor Thyself,” “Rogue” and “A Good Woman.”

“I’ve remained very remote and very private, partly because of all my kids (nine). They’re bigger now and I would like to communicate with my readers in a more informal way, not just through the list of my accomplishments on my publisher’s Web site.

In a recent telephone interview from her home in San Francisco, Steel said she expects to launch her blog, www.daniellesteel.net, on Thursday, to post entries once a week or more often “if I get excited about something.”

An acknowledged technophobe who writes on a 1946 typewriter, Steel says her children dragged her into the computer age, teaching her how to e-mail and inspiring her to take a closer look at what is written on the Internet.

She is not always impressed.

“Some are very interesting, but some are so inane – unknown people telling you what they do every day, which is even more boring than what I do every day.”

But she will play nice on her blog.

“I want it to be friendly and positive,” she said. “I have seen some of the blogs being highly critical about people and highly nasty. I don’t like that in life; it’s just not necessary. Life is hard enough without being sour on top of it.”