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barrylyga OP t1_iy96sqs wrote

Reply to comment by Whoknewthat1982 in Hey there, r/books! I’m Barry Lyga, author of 27 novels in a variety of genres and I’m here to answer your questions honestly…or to make up shit if I don’t know what else to say — AMA! by barrylyga

I'm not tremendously well-read in that space, but my feeling is that it's not that you have to be a celebrity -- you just have to have led a really interesting life!

I look at it this way: When I write a novel, I try to determine if anything like this exists in the world already. Because if it does, well, maybe I need to rethink it.

It's similar with memoir, I imagine -- if you have a life that is really, really unlike pretty much everything else out there, I think it works.

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Whoknewthat1982 t1_iy973fo wrote

Thanks for the feedback. Obviously mental health memoirs do exist. My style of writing was a little bit different I used my journal entries alongside patients notes to invite people into my therapy sessions. With that being said,I was just curious. Been a little bit discouraged with the feedback about memoirs in general. Thank you

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