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But a screenplay is closer to a short story than to a novel; in order to keep the script under the dreaded l20-page mark, I had to leave out material I couldn’t bear to lose. So I wrote the novel, too. And, though a screenplay is shorter than a novel, it takes longer for a screenplay to become a movie than it does for a novel to see print. Pocket Books has scheduled the novel for hardcover publication in September 1997. As for the screenplay… One of the most important lessons I learned in Hollywood was “Never hold your breath.”

I’m very grateful to Steven Spielberg for the freedom his comments inspired while I was feeling my way into learning the screenplay form (which is much more difficult than most novelists admit); to my Universal mentor, Cary Granat, and my Amblin mentors, Jason Hoffs and Andrea McCall, for their suggestions and assistance; to Judy and Gar Reeves-Stevens and Joe La Jeunesse for their support and their friendship; to Peter Hirschmann for pulling me out of the slush pile; and to my workshop colleagues—Jon Bastian, Craig Duswalt, Jack Fashbaugh, Wendy Hammond, Yannick Murphy, Akhil Sharma, Buzz Poverman, Timothy Yapp—for their enthusiasm for the script.

Kevin Kennedy, the expert leader of the WFP workshop, saw the screenplay version of The Moon and the Sun at every stage and contributed to it immensely with his suggestions, his imagination, and his knowledge of movies. I thank him for his generosity, and for making it easy for me to be a student again for the first time in many years.