Thinking ahead to NaNo WriMo

What's that? It's only August, you say? And National Novel Writing Month is still several months away? Yes, yes, but it's never too early to start planning! Having recently finished my YA novel, Pandemic, I am looking ahead to my next project. (Other than querying and trying to sell said YA novel, of course.) If you aren't familiar with NaNo WriMo, it's one month out of the year where thousands of writers across the globe attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. 2010 will be my third year participating. I won my first year with a novel I called "Into Darkness". I finished the word count, but never actually finished the book. In fact, it got right up to the most interesting and terrifying part of the book and stopped. My husband is still upset about it. Last year, however, I only made it about 30,000 words in (this being the same novel I just finished), at which point I trashed the entire thing save one scene and started over.

This year, I will be triumphant. Heck, I might even set my goal larger than 50,000 words! Oh, the insanity! But let's face it, 50k does not a novel make in most instances. It's only half a novel. Ish.

So, the question already tickling the back of my brain is which project do I write this year for NaNo?

Option 1. I write the second book in my Pandemic series. It's definitely not going to be complete at 50k since book 1 is easily almost 90k, but getting 50,000 words into the second book would be great. On the other hand, some writers have said that you shouldn't write the second book in the series until you know whether or not the first book is ever going to sell. Hmmm. Could be good advice, since selling book 2 would be particularly hard if no one wanted book 1.

Option 2. I write a book that will be complete at 50,000 words and is targeted toward an ebook only self-publishing route. I have been toying around with the idea of self-publishing a lot lately. The writing community is up in arms about the future of traditional print publishing and with last week's announcements that Dorchester is ceasing its Mass Market paperbacks and Barnes and Noble is possibly up for sale, I am beginning to wonder if it might be smart to test the self-publishing waters just to learn a thing or two. After all, any writing I do is good practice, and I might as well try to get some practice in with the publishing bit too, just in case.

And those are pretty much the two options I am tossing around. If I decide to go with option 2 and write a book I specifically plan to self-publish through Kindle and Smashwords and PubIt! or whatever other self-publishing ebook formats are out there at the time, then I'll have to completely brainstorm ideas for what I want that book to be about. There will probably be a little bit of research involved as well, such as what demographic is buying most indie ebooks. What genre is selling best and is there a market for my type of YA horror/urban fantasy/romance mixture? Option 2 comes with a lot of unanswered questions, but a lot of excitement as well.

Good thing I have a few months yet to think about it.