John Grisham

Grisham says he has never met a successful writer who was not an avid reader.

“Reading, reading, reading is the most important. I don't know a single writer, successful writer, who is not an avid reader”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life (Oct 1, 2026) · Listen from 1:00:50

Grisham says a bookstore executive's remark that top authors publish annually led to his book-a-year schedule.

“That's where the book a year came from. That's been a book a year for 35 years now. Page a day, a book a year”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life (Oct 1, 2026) · Listen from 55:32

Grisham argues a fiction writer should be able to pitch an idea in about 30 seconds.

“You have to refine the pitch to about 30 seconds max. If you can't do it in 30 seconds, you're probably in trouble”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life (Oct 1, 2026) · Listen from 16:24

Grisham advises anyone serious about writing to stop talking about it and write at least a page every day.

“If you're serious about writing anything, stop talking about it. Don't talk your book to death”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life (Oct 1, 2026) · Listen from 14:53

Grisham says he stays hopeful by focusing on what he can control and working with nonprofits on hunger, homelessness, and wrongful convictions.

“My wife and I are active with childhood hunger issues, homelessness, and wrongful convictions”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life (Oct 1, 2026) · Listen from 1:05:45

Grisham says researching an innocent man who nearly was executed in Oklahoma drew him into advocacy against wrongful convictions.

“once I realized there are thousands of innocent people in prison, it was a big wake-up call for me”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life (Oct 1, 2026) · Listen from 1:03:43

Grisham believes he probably would have quit writing and returned to trial law had The Firm not succeeded.

“I've tried twice. I can't keep doing this. I've got a great fallback position. I've got the bread and butter right here. It's my law office”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life (Oct 1, 2026) · Listen from 47:06

Grisham says varied jobs and life experiences are essential material for writers, and that he would not be a writer without having been a lawyer.

“I didn't enjoy practicing law for 10 years. I hung in there, but I'm so glad I did because I would not be a writer if I hadn't been a lawyer”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life (Oct 1, 2026) · Listen from 23:35

Grisham says witnessing a child's testimony in a rape trial gave him the idea for A Time to Kill.

“A fictional story is seen through the eyes of this idealistic young attorney who gets appointed to represent this guy. And here we go. And that was the origin of A Time to Kill”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life (Oct 1, 2026) · Listen from 38:26

Grisham says his editor cut a third of the nearly thousand-page A Time to Kill manuscript, which led him to always outline in advance.

“My first editor, who was a great editor, cut a third of it and he was right. There was just too much junk in it”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life (Oct 1, 2026) · Listen from 17:13

Grisham recounts that the film rights to The Firm sold to Paramount for $600,000, more than he had earned in a decade of law practice.

“we just sold the film rights to the firm to Paramount Pictures for $600,000, which was more money than I'd made in 10 years of practicing law”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life (Oct 1, 2026) · Listen from 49:55

Grisham says nearly every successful writer has faced rejection.

“Some of the great books we've read and enjoyed over the years were totally rejected”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life (Oct 1, 2026) · Listen from 45:59

Grisham attributes his college drifting partly to his strict Southern Baptist upbringing and the looming Vietnam draft.

“it was a really a dark time in American history, especially for kids who were facing the draft. And we were all staring at the draft”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life (Oct 1, 2026) · Listen from 31:16

Grisham says being falsely accused of plagiarism was traumatic and later connected to his writing about the wrongly convicted.

“It's very traumatic to be accused of something when you know you're innocent. And I still think about that episode”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life (Oct 1, 2026) · Listen from 27:15

Grisham says The Firm grew from a law-school friend's account of a firm that seemed impossible to leave, as if mob-owned.

“I got the impression that once you join that firm, you never really left like it was owned by the mafia or something, a tax firm”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life (Oct 1, 2026) · Listen from 8:05