He is currently writing or editing on six projects,
Splinterdorf’s Tale: Volume One
Smith also has completed a middle-grade sci-fi book titled Splinterdorf’s Tale, about a girl “critter” on a faraway planet distinguished by three suns and an assortment of unusual animals. The illustrated book is on schedule to be published in 2010.
Circumference of Me
Smith is working with Steve Burnett, a business consultant and artist, on a unique management book titled Circumference of Me.Featuring Burnett’s one-of-a-kind “whimsy” watercolor paintings and his ethereal view of business management and motivational techniques, and Smith’s gut-punching literary style, Circumference will be a “unique approach to management of one’s business career,” Smith said.
The book is on track to be published in the last half of 2010.
Screwing the Internet Spamming Scammer
A humorous novel co-written with his daughter, Mattie Somer Cummins, of Phoenix, Arizona, is in the final editing phase.The book is titled Screwing the Internet Spamming Scammers. For the past three years, the father-daughter team has corresponded with more than a hundred email scam artists from throughout the world, gathering information.
“This is not your typical beware-of-scammers book,” Smith said. “The object of the book is to show to what lengths scammers will go to pluck an Internet pigeon. And, with the proper approach, the scammers can be easily scammed.”
The writers received more than $380,000 in fraudulent money orders and American Express gift cheques from scam artists, checks reportedly from legitimate businesses totaling more than $500,000, proposals of marriage and promises of payouts of more than $67 million.
In the research, the writers involved the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and various legitimate businesses from coast-to-coast which no idea scammers were using their business name and checks in scamming schemes.
The novel is scheduled for publication in late 2010 or early 2011.
Additional works in progress:
Uncertain People
Smith has written than 30,000 words on a prequel to Uncertain Times called Uncertain People. The new novel is based in Mountain Home, Arkansas. He said he “fell in love with the two main characters of Uncertain Times and couldn’t let them go. So, they are resurrected in a story 30 years in the past.”Growing Up Mostly Happy
Smith has more completed more than 20,000 words (18 chapters) on growing up in Avery, Texas, a town with 332 residents.About Growing Up Mostly Happy, Smith said, “I wrote something to a friend of mine once – Everyone has a special way of going back home.
“Growing up in Avery was special and gave me a solid foundation for life. All I have to do is think about chewing and sucking on sour dock, fighting wasps in empty box cars, memorizing Bible verses for the Royal Ambassadors, making a fuzzy-water red hot soda at Gathings Drug, or catching crawdads in bar ditches after a heavy rain . . . and I’m back in Avery.”
Smith said, “I’m not writing this book because I want to see it published. I’m writing it for my four children to show them how a simple life in a small town can be life-changing. I’m also writing it for those friends and acquaintances in Avery, who truly did their part to help me survive the younger years, and knew, in my case, it did take a village to raise an idiot.”