The story of the Brennans goes back pretty far... way back to 2012, when I decided to write a book series that traced a family through the seasons of the year. A quick flip through a phone book (I didn't get farther than B), and I decided on the name Brennan. I folded some 8.5 x 11 papers in half and stapled them in the middle and started writing!

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The Brennans were dairy farmers and I think they lived in New England, the book doesn't say. I was only 10 years old, and I cringe with embarrassment when I read those books now. (I wrote one book and part of a second.) The storyline is very dead, almost diary-like ("At 1:00, they crossed the border into Canada and arrived at Uncle Daniel's at 1:32.") The parts that weren't dead? They were incredibly unrealistic! There were a few good parts of the book though - like the fact that the four-year-old was obsessed with watered-down orange juice! (Hmm. I never did incorporate that one into the modern-day Brennans. Maybe a future series?)

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But the Brennans idea didn't totally die on me. Around 2015 I gave the series a makeover and made the Brennan family be Bolivian missionaries. After a few stalled attempts, I finally got going and filled seven notebooks of stories.

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Around 2020 when I revisited that series, I was again unimpressed. I tried again and got through two books, this time typed up on an ancient laptop, but found it hard to write about a place I'd never visited (Bolivia).

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So I started a series about a family who lived in Vermont, the Clarks. I used large sections of the Brennans books, integrating them into the storyline, but most of the book content was brand new. I ended up changing the name "Clark" to "Brennan" when I re-did those books (yes, another redo), and now I'm in the process of publishing them!

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So how many editions of the Brennans was there? At least seven. And if I don't get these books published soon, there just might be another edition yet! =)

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Oh, and one more thing... that ancient laptop, with Microsoft Word 2007, is still running. It's slow and requires some patience, but I'm using it to format and edit the books before they go to the printer. You don't need fancy or modern tools to write - I used papers and notebooks and now some really old, slow software! The other piece of advice I have is, keep writing! Your book may sound terrible today, but you don't know where you'll end up if you keep revising and learning new things.