You may have asked why there are so many skeins of sock yarn on my amazon wishlist. Well, I have a plan. I’ve made about 8 socks in the last week or so, and I’m still working on more. I want to take a photograph of a pile of socks. Not just any pile, but a huge and beautiful heap of them. Why?
Well, I’ve started on the sequel to “The Madam and Mr. Brown.” What you are about to read are the first four pages of the draft.
I like visiting those two characters and lately, I’ve been wanting to spend more and more time with the Madam’s nicotine stained teeth and youthful innocence, and Mr. Brown’s fear, anxiety and desire for simplicity.
The new book starts of with a question. I’ll let you read then we’ll continue….
He was napping, snoring elegantly on his brown couch with the drapes drawn. He never opened them, but on occasion, an itty-bitty breeze would allow a slight amount of sunlight to pierce his brown room like a shard.
The Madam peeked her head through the hole, which she was never allowed to do. But, she was curious. They had lived side by side and inside each other’s lives for a good six months now. Mr. Brown had been knitting socks the whole time….where had they gone? What had he done with them? That was all he ever did. Day in and day out he only let go of his knitting to make them dinner. (As you remember, The Madam is a terrible cook). So, where had they all gone? Did he simply throw them away? Or had he gone so mad that he would knit a pair of socks, finish them, unwind the yarn until it was just a skein again, then knit them back up? Over and over? Like a crazy person would????
She needed to know what was happening with Mr. Brown. The last six months had not been very kind to them and she was so anxious to put things back together.
She nudged her head through their shared hole with a delicacy. She knew that just the slightest hint of her breath would stir him, wake him and she would be in tremendous trouble.
She crooked her head to the right. She could see his front door. The slightest bit of light coming through the threshold had been blocked out with brown paper bags.
Then she moved her head ever so slowly to the right to find the most astonishing thing. As dust fluttered like fairies through the dim sliver of sun ray, she spied a pile of hand knit socks tucked behind the couch, worked up beautifully, but never worn.
There were dozens of them overflowing in the corner, a small hill of darlings he had knit then dismissed.
She pulled her head back in quickly and gasped with delight. “Oh, my! I’m turning you into a cottage industry, Mr. Brown!”
The Madam grabbed her second to last cigarette and said with some relief, “We might make rent after all….”
I couldn’t shake this great shot in my head of this pile of knit socks that Mr. Brown had made. I thought it would be great to recreate that shot in real life, then take those socks and sell a pair with each signed, hardcover copy of “The Madam and Mr. Brown.” Talk about limited edition. The funds from that will help me spend time working on this sequel. I don’t have a title yet, but I do have a feel for what is going to happen to them. Mrs. Brown is going to do everything she can to help save this poor, wrecked man. Things haven’t gone well for them, but she is going to do everything she can to keep him in her life, safe in only a way for him that only she understands. So click here if you’d like a pair of Mr. Brown’s socks with a hardcover copy of “The Madam and Mr. Brown.” Or if you would like to read the book on kindle, click here.
If you appreciate my work and would like for it to continue, please donate. Every bit helps and I wouldn’t have the courage to do this without you. Thank you so much for reading!
I
madmanknitting.wordpress.com 