I've asked him to casually look into it, and see what Don's up to now. =) Apart from being second in command at Disney and all that. Obviously Don is verrry busy, but hopefully can get a few words out of him. I do have Don Hahn's email (I took a guess what it was and was right) but I won't email him ... why bug a man who has the restructuring of Disney to think about right now!
Holger will also be sending in some copies of the Clapperboard and "The Creative Man" documentaries from 1969, dealing with the Nasrudin film, which he got from Roy Naisbitt.
I don't know if I mentioned it, but I also heard from Greg Duffell.
There's been so much news, every day I'm dealing with dozens of emails and tons and tons of new information. I'm still writing emails from four days ago ... or longer ...
But I'll keep you all updated on the best of it. =)
NOW ...
I need some help, and I'm really serious about this one. I need some SERIOUS help.
I need an editor ... who can wade through and organize a LOT of written material. It's practically a writing job in and of itself.
I was working with Sean Murphy, who had signed up to be an editor, helping edit together the materials needed for me to write this book/script.
Sean, to his credit, put a lot of work organizing articles into a private Wiki. But it wasn't the kind of organizing I actually needed!
Today he called, and we had a nice conversation, but he said he just couldn't wrap his mind around the kind of editing I needed here. He understood it now, but he couldn't do it.
So, this is what I need.
I have collected a large amount of articles. A few hundred pages worth, yeah.
I need someone who can go through this material, article by article, and separate out the portions of each article which pertain to a specific period of time.
So, if the bit of the article was about "Richard Williams was born in ..." You'd put that at the beginning of Chapter 2.
If it's about Nasrudin, it goes into the Nasrudin chapter at the appropriate point. About A Christmas Carol, at that point.
The idea is to get the appropriate portions of each article arranged so that all the information about, say, Richard's early years is all together. Everything about The Little Island is together. Raggedy Ann, together. The 70s Thief, together. The 80s Thief, together. The 90s Thief, together.
When this is all done, I'll have a long master document that I can then look at while I'm writing, and instantly have all the information I could ever need right in front of my eyes. Every sentence I write will be well-informed and I'll be able to use the best information from every source.
I can break this job up so that it's being done by one person for a while, then another person, then another person, but it can only be done by one person at a time really.
It is a pretty tough job. Sean agreed that it would be a mistake to try and do it myself, as I would get so into organizing the material that I'd be low on energy when actually writing, I'd feel like it had all already been said. The information needs to hit me freshly for the text of the book to have any snap.
Anyway. It's a hugely important job. And I can break it up to make it easier, people can do it in shifts.
Any takers?