Back in 2017, when John Grisham had only sold a few quadrillion books, he very helpfully agreed to jot down some ideas for writing success in the New York Times.

A few of these are somewhat self-evident but nevertheless sterling pieces of advice to keep in mind:

Do: Write a page every day.
Don’t: Keep a thesaurus within reaching distance.

There’s another, however, which some people might quibble with:

Don’t: Write your first scene until you know your last.

This is fantastic when it happens. And many times you go searching for that final moment and it never comes to you. But other times, writing towards the conclusion delivers it to you. Which makes this seem overly limiting.

Still, he did write The Firm.