I think mine is probably a bit of a con because it’s about me. It starts with a memory of a swing hanging from beams in a garage back in 1964 and it ends today. There is fiction only where memory has distorted naturally. I wrote it to understand more about me. I wrote to see where and why I self-injured, drank, became depressed and more. I wrote to work out what I thought not just about then but also something about going forward. And I wrote because writing works for me. So while everyone else probably struggled with plots and characters I just had to remember stuff. I was surprised how sad I was for nearly all of it, how angry and irritable a section made me and how deeply happy somewhere else did. I had no idea the first two emotions would surface as they did, especially the anger.
Is it complete? No, doubt it ever will be. Not because it will continue but that there is still so much left to write from before now. Will I complete it? No idea. Despite the negative emotion I have enjoyed the process (or I would not have completed it).
Do I feel better for it? I feel worse actually. It has uncovered thoughts and wants which I knew I had but were never allowed to see the sunlight. But they will go back to the darkness. It did clarify though and that was an aim.
Can you read it? No. There are maybe 2 people but even then it needs putting into some sort of shape.

Edit: Someone has pointed out it is not a novel because it is about me, it’s a bio of sorts. That’s true so no it does not count which is why I called it a con. It started out as a fictional work based on me and in the first few thousand words there was fictional content. Increasingly though the style of writing changed and in some sections it was written as the fictional part and others as it turned out. It was hard to read and make sense of because of that and the small fictional details I was dropping in. So I had to make a choice what to do and I chose what suited me. I chopped out the fictional parts which dropped by word count by a few thousand. It would have been easier to stay where I was, pass the 50k then edit it back down. But if writing is an expression of you then that is what mine is. I have the fictional save and it would take a couple of hours at most to edit it all back in and turn it into a novel. It would still be about me, it would still not be published and it would still serve the same purpose – better in fact if is not a novel.
Con or not I still sat down and wrote. The official word count is 50,376.

What now? I’ll keep wearing this big “I did it” grin for the rest of the day :)