I want Gillian Flynn’s division of labor.
How does Gillian Flynn do it, The Cut asks today in its recurring feature. How did she write Gone Girl and then the Gone Girl screenplay and then Sharp Objects and her other blockbusters? Well, her productivity is due at least in part to a workable domestic partnership with her husband, attorney Brett Nolan, with whom she has two children and told The Cut:
My husband does the majority of the logistics with the kids—he’s the one who takes them to the dentist and remembers when they have a playdate—and then I will swoop in and be fun mom. So in some ways, it’s the reverse of the traditional roles. It’s very equitable. He really takes care of the left-brain household stuff, and I take care of the right-brain stuff. That’s kind of how it’s divided up.
I APPROVE. I approve of a female writer having what was traditionally a very male arrangement—the wifey to type up the notes, edit the books, and provide as both muse and admin (looking at you F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, T.S. Eliot, and Nabakov, for profiting off the free labor of your partners).
I want a partner that corrals my stray thoughts, types and organizes my half-baked ideas into cohesive wholes, and encourages me as I fitfully puff on cigars.
As it happens, my husband pulled the short straw on our son’s last dental appointment: he sent me a video of our 6-year-old lying in the chair soaring through the sky on the nitrous magic carpet and telling the nurse, “I wish I always had on happy gas. I wish we could have happy gas that we could bring home, and then we could use it at our house and it would smell really good.”
Did I get any work done while this was happening? A little.
Can I get a hear hear for Brett.
