Value of Discussion Groups

I am a member of several discussion groups at yahoo. There are a few that I do not accept individual emails from since the group is so overactive that it clogs my mailbox and so I prefer to go visit that site when I feel I have the time. But a few which are historical I converse with regularly. I will admit that a few historical sites have little activity, and there are a variety of reasons for that, but the most likely is that there is only so much that one can say about that individual after having said all that can be known over the course of several years.

Also in some rare cases, the owner/moderator abandons the site to go elsewhere. One of the more active sites currently is the TudorTalk site which has a membership that enjoys discussing the lives of Elizabeth I, Henry VIII, and other members of the Tudor family.

I have been a member of the Louis XIV discussion group since its creation, and while the original owner appears to have sold it, we continue to maintain it faithfully. It is through a member there that I became a member of the TudorTalk group as Elizabeth I had been my favorite queen since childhood.

I had grown up reading books about her when I was in elementary school. I do not recall at which age I had been as I was a voracious reader in first grade and was probably reading advanced books all my elementary life even into high school. I am an avid reader even yet as I can devour books rather readily. I will admit that writing them is not as easy as it would appear. But I had targeted childhood because of the impact that books had had on me as a child. I know that adult readers like gore, sex, violence, and strong, powerful conflicts in plots, but I like to introduce children to historical figures in a way that creates interest plus also makes them like them as human beings.

When I began my writing efforts in children's books, I had not yet learned of Louis XIV or Alexander, but I had known of George Washington of course. And believe it or not, there are many childhood books devoted to each one of the early presidents as well as later presidents. The first ladies have always interested me as well.

So I have been weighing all the aspects of writing books, and using certain kinds of tools with which to entertain children as well as inform and instruct them.

In all books, one must have a theme of some kind. Author's invariably have themes whether they realize it or not.

I was taught when doing my student teaching how to make a book review. The parts of a review include plot, theme, characters, location, style, and author's background...I had many a great review given by my students over the years, and it always fascinated me to realize how bright young people really can be.

I believe that the first thing that one has to understand about children is the parent/child relationship. I recently wrote about the time I had seen Philip in a past lifetime experience with Alexander, and the important thing that I had learned is how much Philip had been an influence on Alexander.

It helps to understand why Alexander killed his good friend and bodyguard Kleitos.

I will develop this idea further in a future post...for now, I am going to post this and return to it at a later date...reason is that I am guarding and protecting my time on the internet at this moment...