Why I'm dragging my feet: aka novel lamenting

So Thursday night I decided: Friday night, I am going to kick some major novel butt.

And I did! I'm proud to report that I got 3,030 words in a little over 3 hours. (The actual time of writing was less because, well, you know, I had to take a putz break here and there)

However, it dawned on me...that the end is nigh. On the one hand, this is a cause for celebration, because I've been trying to get this thing written for how long now? (Apparently self-imposed ultimatums work.)

But at the same time, I realize the implication of the novel ending: that character must die. I don't mean some writerly-metaphorical "you stop working with the character so they're essentially dead" thing. I mean, I'm actually going to kill off this character. This character has to die. I've known this for over five years, since I wrote the original short story.

So, in the only way I know how, I tell my beloved husband that I'm really sad about this, and he shrugs and says "gotta do what you gotta do".

Beloved husband does NOT get it.

Maybe it's because he's never actually killed off a main character. But this character has been in my head for five years, basically. It was much easier to kill off this character before this character, before my eyes, grew up, matured, and became something more than what was originally intended. I know that we've got a lot of revision to do to really perfect this character, smooth it down to the gem it needs to be...but I'm pretty proud of this character. And now the end of the story is coming, and this character has to die.

So I'm dragging my feet, just a little.

But I'm close to the end, and by golly, that is a fantastic place to be.