Well, I finished my new book.

You'd expect this would be a good thing; and Lord knows I've been living with this one for two years now and in the middle of it was so not sure I'd ever finish it that this is an immense relief and an occasion of quiet satisfaction.

And yet.

Any other writers feel like this when you finish a book: invisible, useless, like you're suddenly redundant on this earth, without a purpose when you get up in the morning?

I have a long list of things to do, some I want to do (a flock of museum shows, books to read, Asian art catalogs to study) and some I have to do (the taxes, cleaning out the closets). When I'm in the middle of a book, I think how great it would be if I only had a little time to DO stuff. Then, between books, I get that time. And the only way to do the stuff is to ignore, the way you would a bad cold, the unshakeable and unpleasant suspicion that when I'm not writing, I don't exist.