Today is:

Whether you are writing your ancestors’ life stories (“family history”),  your own life stories (“memoir”), or your life story with ancestral stories woven throughout (“ancestoir.” I invented the word, FYI), you can surely find the time to jot down a few notes today, which we will then shape into an actual story on Wednesday.

To help you all get started with your personal and/or ancestral memoirs today, I will start with a topic:

BREAKFAST

So hurry and grab your notebooks (the real paper kind) or laptops and jot this down:

• What did you eat for breakfast as a child?
• What did your parents typically eat for breakfast when they were young? (this might necessitate a call to your parents, or some aunts and uncles who remember)
• What did your ancestors typically eat for breakfast? (might require a phone call or a trip to the library to peruse food histories such as 1000 Years Over a Hot Stove)

Now, as you are jotting down those foods, try to think in adjectives. Be creative! Were your Cheerios crunchy? Did grandma’s biscuits ooze with salty sausage gravy? Try to toss in as many creative writing words that will help make the story of your (or your ancestors’) breakfasts sound as delicious to the reader as they are to your memory!