Monday and Tuesday, I outlined the endings of Books 1 & 2 in what I'm presently calling the Motherland Duology, though that name might change as time passes. Today, I plotted the protagonist's thread through Book 1 in Freemind using the end to beginning technique I wrote about here in the comments:
This means I'm presently working on two series at once, or rather, two books in the same story, since Motherland 1 could function as either Book 7 or Book 1 of the Petals of the Twenty Thousand Blossom cycle, and I'm also two chapters into the second book of the first (World Sea Legacy) series right now. Awhile back, I realized there were two possible entry points into the same story and that they would easily flow into each other no matter which one I wrote first. So since the first one was completed, I decided to write the second.
I'm still shopping out the original novel, but this new thing I'm writing is insurance for the series. If one novel doesn't sell, I can try again with the other, write forward from there and rewrite/revise the early work when the time comes. It's all very circular, I know, but it's quite clear in my head, I assure you.