A first work, reworked again | Arena theater takes John Grisham's 1st novel to stage

A Washington DC theater brings first Grisham novel to the stage

(AP, via seattlepi.com)  -- A novel that once drew a pile of rejection letters from major publishers and was slow to sell when it was finally printed will have another life onstage.

"A Time to Kill," John Grisham's first novel, went on to sell more than 15 million copies after the success of his second book, "The Firm." [A Time to Kill] was made into a movie in 1996. 

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Grisham, not a lazy man, has admitted to having been a lazy lawyer: he would sit in the courtroom and work on novel drafts on legal pads during sessions.

As most successes who hit it big early in a particular career, some see Grisham as an overnight success. But you'll find that most "overnight successes" take a long time to achieve that success. If the work is there, then the work may take on a power of its own, much out of the control of the artist. Such is the case with Grisham's first novel.

I recall from the 1990s that, early on, while he was working on his writing, he was a regular reader of Writer's Digest, a magazine that provides craft, industry and motivational information for active writers of many kinds.

- Jon O.