What is a typical day like for you?

I like getting up with the dawn. I’ll start writing right away because, first thing, I feel really clear and filled with ideas. I just write what’s in me, so it could be anything from an hour to three. Then I do a bit of yoga. My senses are acute — I can feel if I need to stretch a tense muscle. Next, I organise my day and eat breakfast: usually porridge and a bit of fruit. An hour-long walk in St James’s Park encourages me to get out into the world, and is when I get ideas. Then I do e-mails and calls. I’m not addicted to e-mail, so after checking once, I don’t look again. As a writer, you have to find ways to keep moving and stay limber, so then I’ll go to the gym. More thoughts come to me, and I take mental notes. Then I’ll come back and work through the night, till about 3am.

I also work five hours a week unpaid for the British Museum, which gives me the chance to come out of my cave. I get to be around people in finance, in science — those not in the arts. I learn an enormous amount. I can’t understand how any writer can just hang out with other writers.

How do you exist on so little sleep?

I get by on about four or five hours. I like to see the sun and I’ve always survived on very little rest. I don’t drink and I have never had a cigarette, though I love an occasional havana. I love being awake and I don’t feel fatigue.

When do you make time for your husband and friends?

David, who’s a lawyer, is an early sleeper and I go to sleep late, so he has his own routine; we don’t eat supper together. But we are around each other in the house and that is good enough. We try to go out for a meal at the weekend and spend time together, but I am too busy in the week to do it. Hanging out with friends was the one big sacrifice I made for my work. I am starting to do more of it, but, for 15 years, I led a solitary life. Now I am beginning to see that it is important just to be with people and have a good time. I have a little circle of girlfriends — they’re my lifeline. I like the company of women; I like their common sense.

What was your reason for not having children?

The worst thing that could ever happen to me — and my child — is for me to look at them and think: “I’m bored.” I would never want a child to know that they were the reason I didn’t do something. I like to move around and I don’t think it is fair to pull a child out of school. I have plenty of nieces and nephews, and friends with children. There are so many children in the world, I didn’t need to bring in any more.

Working alone, you must be a self-starter

Work and play are the same thing to me. Because I began writing aged eight, I never had any sense of a career — that has really only come in the past five years. It has always been play. As a child, I was busy trying to express myself — I am the oldest of seven, but was never the smartest. Our dad was a great autodidact and I have been blessed with his curiosity. I’m also acutely aware of finiteness, because I am of the generation where people died of Aids, so I lost lots of friends.

What support system do you have around you?

I talk to my agent and editor, Judith, every day. She knows me, and what I am trying to do, and is an important sounding board. She doesn’t tell me what to do, but she’ll quietly say: “You might want to look at this.” One person around me is enough — everything you do is a creative process to hear your own voice. As an artist, you have to have a strong sense of self-worth. That doesn’t mean I’m always right — I have been wrong, but I haven’t been shaken. I grew up in a community where the women were calm. It’s a kind of blues heritage — all that music has a great inner calm. It comes from a saying in the black church: “This too shall pass.” And it does.

How do you switch off from work?

I don’t take holidays — I’m too much of a work-aholic — but I go away for midweek breaks. David and I own a home in Nice, where we like to walk by the sea, eat and smoke cigars. I don’t go to the theatre — it’s like going to work — but I love to window-shop for high fashion. I have also started going back to Mass (I was raised a Catholic). It’s an hour a week where I can turn off and sing, and not talk — a lack of complication.

What is the most important thing in your life?

Doing good, meaningful work that means something to others. I want to be of use to the world, even if it is just a minuscule corner of it.

Bonnie's latest book, Obama Music, a biographical account of African-American music and politics, was published last month

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