I am writing, hear me roar

For a year, Louise Doughty, a plucky author from England, wrote a column for the Daily Telegraph called: A Novel in a Year. Which gave advice on how to... you can probably guess. Well many parts of that column have now been magicked into a book. I have a copy, courtesy of the local library, and will be doing some of the exercises for the sake of fine art and debauchery.

Exercise 1
Write one (or more) sentence(s) that begin(s) with: "The day after my eighth birthday, my father told me..."

Here are my efforts so far:

1.1 The day after my eighth birthday my father told me he'd be back soon. I'm still waiting.

1.2 The day after my eighth birthday my father told me that the old room under the stairs had other uses of which up to that point, I had been unaware.

1.3 The day after my eighth birthday my father told me that girls were a horrible inconvenience. I was subsequently shipped off to the nearest monastery.

1.4 The day after my eighth birthday my father told me that onions were a suitable side dish, but as a main course they were decidedly undesirable. He looked me in the eye, clasping my shoulders with a grip that betrayed concern and despair all at the same time "Son in the garden of life you can't ever hope to be anything more than an onion." I've had bad breath ever since.

1.5 The day after my eighth birthday my father told me that demons were real and that God was dead. He later died of syphilis.

1.6 The day after my eighth birthday my father told me that he was me come back from a future timeline to save humanity and that he had accidentally sired him/myself along the way.

1.7 The day after my eighth birthday my father told me that everything was going to be fine. After that I lost my memory. Sorry what was I saying?

1.8 The day after my eighth birthday my father told me that in another time and another place things would have been different. This somehow made me think the thought: the colour blue is blue. I now only speak in tautologies. Or I don't.

As a future safe writer (I have it on good authority from the imagined future that I've concocted in my brain, that I will very shortly be a rich and famous writer. What? My whimsical forays into the imaginary realm don't actually guarantee success? Oh, I see) I thought this kind of frivolous exercise would extend far beneath my laudable wordsmithy skills, but I'm a generous sort and decided to venture into Doughty's world, sight unseen. What can I say? I was pleasantly surprised. Feel free to give this a go. It's fun :) :( :