Gillian Flynn’s Bedtime Routine Is Not For the Faint of Heart

When I talk to best-selling author Gillian Flynn, she’s roller-skating through her Chicago home. She floats from the dining room to the living room, all while confessing that she hadn’t slept the night before. It’s a bit of a jarring start to an interview about sleep, but for the author of nail-biters Gone Girl, Sharp Objects, and Dark Places, pulling an all-nighter is old hat. “I was having a really good writing streak and I just didn’t want to stop,” she says. When I’ve had anything less than 7 hours and 55 minutes of sleep, I need an IV drip of caffeine just to get me out of bed, yet Flynn is gregarious, whip-smart, and completely eloquent on zero hours of sleep. 

So what’s her secret? “Roller skates and Red Bull, baby!”

In August, Flynn and her husband bought their daughter roller skates for her birthday, and Flynn quickly realized she needed a pair of her own. “It’s become my quarantine specialty. When I was a kid, we’d skate all the time. I’m really good. I might join a roller derby, who knows!” Aside from the good ol’ nostalgic fun they provide, Flynn has taken up skating in part to help her wind down for the evening—sleep does not come naturally to her. “I have a dark and tempestuous relationship with sleep,” she says. “I’m a complete night owl by nature.”

Flynn reports her peak writing hours are from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. “I love writing after midnight because you start feeling like you have the world to yourself. Your cell phone stops going, there are no texts coming, and you can really get into your world.” When I tell Flynn that burying my nose in her books has led to many sleepless nights of my own, she’s flattered. “That is very good news for any writer. We like to make you miss your bedtime, forget to water the plants, and feed the kids—all that good stuff. We’re diabolical that way.”

These days, the writer has taken on a new occupation: that of a TV showrunner. Her conspiracy thriller series, Utopia, stars John Cusack, Rainn Wilson, and Sasha Lane, and it is already getting rave reviews. (The series premiered on Amazon Prime on September 25.) “There’s something very humbling about pushing 50 and suddenly learning something that’s totally new that you’re not quite comfortable with. You’re learning as you go. I had been on the sets of Gone Girl and Sharp Objects, but running a show is a totally different thing. It’s all-encompassing.”

As showrunner, writer, and executive-producer of Utopia, Flynn kept to a schedule that consisted of 16-hour shoot days, including night shoots that started around 4 a.m. “I’d come home as the sun was coming up, sleep for a few hours, and get up and try to remind my kids who I was,” she says. Now that the series is out in the world, Flynn is trying to get back to her typical 2 a.m. bedtime. Key word: Trying. “I’ll go through these streaks where I’ll only sleep three or four hours a night, and then two weeks later, it catches up to me and I have a deep, sick sleep. I’m really erratic to the point where sometimes I think I should get a sleep test, because it doesn’t seem entirely normal. But I’ve always been this way.” 

While Gillian Flynn’s sleep schedule is not for the faint of heart, she credits it with playing a part in her success. “I remember my parents tucking me into bed as a kid, and they were really strict about sleep, so there were no lights on, and no reading. I would stay up for hours, sitting in the dark and telling myself stories. I think it’s part of the reason I’m a writer today.”

Here, Flynn tells Glamour how she falls asleep, on the rare occasions she does. Proceed with caution.

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My Bath-Time Ritual

I take a bath pretty much every night. I grew up in an old house, and it had no showers, just bathtubs. I think I was probably 12 when I had my first shower, and they don’t really appeal to me. But I love a hot soak in the bath while reading. My favorite part is the filling of the tub. I get in the tub with no water and I try to fill it as slowly as possible so that I can really watch the water creep up over me. There’s something really soothing about that—it’s a kind of ritual. I stay there until the water gets cold—usually 45 minutes to an hour. If I’m feeling environmentally nasty, I might splurge and add more hot water, just to stay in a little longer.

My producer, Jessica Rhoades, gifted me with this giant old-fashioned flower shower cap so that my hair doesn’t get wet and dangle in the water. We call it the Old Ida because it makes me look like an ancient farm lady. If my husband happens to see me in Ida mode, there will be no sex that night.

My Glamorous Eveningwear

I have a very old T-shirt from my EW days [Flynn is the former TV critic at Entertainment Weekly] from a TV movie about the Abominable Snowman. It’s the softest T-shirt in the world because it’s about 20 years old at this point, and it just says ‘Abominable’ on it. I can’t even remember if I reviewed the movie or not, but it’s my favorite sleeping shirt.

My Unfussy Skin-Care Routine

I would love to say that I have a skin-care regimen. I pretend to wash my face a little bit. I always have a jar of Pond’s Cold Cream, which is the softest, most old-fashioned and satisfying thing to slather on your face. I swipe at that, and that’s usually it because I work from home, so I don’t usually have makeup on. It reminds me of my dear grandma, who used it.

I will say that if I’m stressed out, the one thing I always do is put Vicks VapoRub under my nose. It reminds me of childhood and I just love the smell. My husband always knows that it’s been a bad writing day if I come to bed smelling like a bronchitis-ridden 12-year-old.

My Nighttime Reads

I like to read on paper. I stare at a screen all day, so I need to switch and tell my brain that I’m going from work to relaxing time. I am usually reading two books at once. It all depends on my mood. If I’ve had a crummy writing day and my brain is just going through too much, I’ll read something I’ve already read because I just can’t take anything new in. It’s usually a true crime book. I have a billion Ann Rule paperbacks that I can grab at any point. Because I’m clumsy, I often drop them in the bathtub, so once they dry, the books suddenly become these giant paperbacks the size of a Bible. If I had a decent day, I can take in something new. I’m currently reading Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna, which is so beautiful. I’m reading it so slowly because it’s one of those that’s really worth taking your time with.

The Bedding That Helps

We have an amazing Tempur-Pedic mattress that is just the exact amount of firmness that I absolutely love. As far as pillows go, as long as it’s fluffy, I’m usually pretty happy. And then we have these bamboo sheets that are super-soft and snugly. I’m someone who has to burrow in order to sleep. Even if it’s 90 degrees, I need to have eight blankets on me and bury my head under the pillow.

The Myth of Sleep Machines

I’ve tried different noise machines over the years, but they kind of freak me out. When my son was an infant, he would only sleep with this heartbeat machine that would go boom-boom-boom-boom. It was so creepy. And then on top of that, we had a baby monitor that made him glow supernaturally. I remember one night, he started crying and of course, I immediately lactated all over myself. It was like, “There’s a little vampire coming for me! It wants my milk!” So that freaked me out. [Laughs]

The Snacks On My Nightstand

I keep way too much junk on my nightstand. It tends to be stuff I’ve forgotten to bring down to the kitchen. I’m a nighttime snacker, and I basically eat nursery school food, so it’s either dry Cheerios or Goldfish crackers. They’re very soothing. So there are crumbs from those snacks. It’s an ongoing source of conflict between my husband and me because oftentimes when I’m reaching over to grab a book in the middle of the night, I knock over the glass of water that’s been left behind. Which will then knock over an old Diet Coke can that’s been left there for a few days, and it’s a domino effect from there. I’m trying to be better about it.

Where I Keep My Cell Phone

Never, ever in the bedroom! I’m not a phone person to begin with, and it’s a big joke with my friends that texts to Gillian will just go into the ether. In fact, there’s a line in Sharp Objects where the main character says, “I don’t have a cell phone. I don’t ever want to be that reachable.” I had about three different friends say, “That was about you.” 

On Going to Bed Angry

My husband and I have definitely gone to bed angry with each other, but one of us will usually reach over, grab the other’s hand, and squeeze it real quick. We don’t need to say anything. It’s kind of a promise to figure it out in the morning.

How I Conquer Sleep Interruptions

I don’t think I’ve ever really slept entirely through the night. I always wake up because I have a bladder that’s the size of a walnut. Sometimes I do some sort of dreaded mantra, because if my brain starts up, then I’m up for an hour easily.

I have this rule where I treat myself like a small child sometimes when it comes to sleep. The rule is, you just have to sit and try to get back to sleep for 30 minutes. If my brain is still going by then, I’ll read or listen to a podcast. I love Work Brain, Stuff You Should Know, and The Flop House. I also love Crime Junkie, which should come as no surprise. It’s not the best thing to fall asleep to. I’ll wake up three hours later and hear “...bloody hands and the knife,” and it’s like, no wonder you have bad dreams, Gillian!

Caitlin Brody is the entertainment director at Condé Nast.

Originally Appeared on Glamour