Before he sold a single book, Grisham was a small-town lawyer and a Mississippi state legislator with no spare time. So he stole it from the morning. The alarm went off at 5, and the first word hit the page by 5:30.
Up Before the Job Started
The routine was brutal and simple. Grisham described setting the alarm for 5, jumping in the shower, and getting to his law office with the first cup of coffee and a legal pad. By 5:30 he was writing, every weekday. The point was to bank pages before clients, court, and the rest of the day swallowed the hours.
The alarm clock would go off at 5, and I'd jump in the shower. I'd be at the office around 5:30. I would have the first cup of coffee, a legal pad and write the first word at 5:30, five days a week.
John Grisham, San Francisco Chronicle
He often had to be in court by 9, which meant the writing was done before most people had eaten breakfast. He's recalled sitting through morning hearings dead tired because he'd already put in three hours at the desk.
The Schedule Outlived the Law Career
Grisham kept the early start long after he could afford to sleep in. He still writes from a small office on his property, five days a week, working through the first half of the year to land a novel by summer. The clock shifted later, but the habit of protecting a fixed daily block never changed. See the full John Grisham writing routine for the wider picture.
What You Can Steal
- Write before the day can touch it. Grisham guarded the pre-dawn hours because nothing else competed for them yet.
- Fix a start time and keep it. 5:30 wasn't a suggestion, it was the line he wrote across every weekday.
- Accept the cost. Lost sleep was the price of a finished book, and he paid it for three years.
- Use the gap you already have. He didn't quit his job to write. He found the hour nobody else wanted.