At this moment, I'm exhausted. It's been three years of nonstop work bringing this thing to life. For the past few months, I've been averaging five hours of sleep a night, and I'm so tired that I'm frequently running into walls. "You look awful," is a comment I get a lot. "Like death, in fact."

"That reminds me of the final chapter of my hilarious new book, PRANK THE MONKEY," I recite robotically, my bloodshot eyes peering blankly ahead, "which is available from Amazon.com for the shockingly low price of $9.95." I feel like a P.O.W.: a Prisoner of Writing.

Having said that, it's probably the most thrilling time of my life. Whether the book becomes a best-seller or barely scrapes out 5,000 copies, I've done it. I can cross "Write a book" off the life to-do list. And I can say that I truly wrote the best book that I am capable of writing. I'm tremendously proud of that.

The best part of writing for the Web is the worst part of writing a book: the speed. With a blog, you can come up with an idea in the morning, have it posted by noon, and get reader feedback by evening. With a book, it's just you and the screen for months on end. You have no idea if it's funny, if anyone will even care.

But in a way, I suppose, it doesn't matter. I did my best, I put my heart into it, and I made myself laugh. And as much work as it was -- holding down a full-time job, a family, a web site, and a book simultaneously -- I was kind of sad when the process was over.

I had a ton of fun writing PRANK THE MONKEY. I hope it shows.

Fin.