All of this shrinking was done by Sarah, of course. She wrote a wonderful post about it. When she was finished with the manuscript, she sent it to me. I read it and sent it back with comments and fixes, and Sarah sent new fixes to me, and I sent her more comments and fixes, and so on. But they were minor. And in the process of reading and rereading the new condensed story and comparing it to the original trilogy I have learned a great deal about story structure and maybe even glimpsed how writers adapt their novels to screenplays.

Let me tell you, it's like milking a wild lioness that can crush your head open as a ripe walnut. Better don't attempt it at home alone, unless you know what you're doing. And better yet, have a good reason to do it, as it seems old books rather like to be left alone. It's very tempting to try and convert them to your current writing style, which I almost did. Thank God Sarah slapped my hands and stopped me. At the present moment the clean final FINAL copy of Siren Suicides graces my Inbox and I will get to reading it as soon as I'm done reading TUBE, Draft 2. Then Royce will proofread it one more time, just in case we missed something, and off it goes to Stuart for formatting. 

Well then. Here are the 10 things I have learned from this process.