Silk Road Slippers: kicking off 2026 with a writing challenge.

Ever since I read Mariella Frostrup’s review of her workshop with the extraordinary Silk Road Slippers writing team, I’ve been stalking their diary dates dreaming about attending one of their retreats in Morocco. Attracting incredible writers such as Maggie O’Farrell, Alan Hollinghurst and Monica Ali, this calibre sets a challenging standard of expectation….and as a beginner in the creative writing world, I have danced outside the Silk Road Slippers windows in the dark like a desperate moth.

In a rush of blood in November, I took the plunge and foolhardily signed up to one of their one-day workshops on a Chelsea houseboat, acutely aware that I’d be stepping on the whispers of gods and goddesses such as Penelope Fitzgerald. Having rung the ship’s bell hanging on the door of HB Veronica, yesterday morning I was ushered into a warmth of nervous chatter and comforting coffee, welcomed by the beautiful Faiza Khan who completely disarmed me with kindness and an immediate compliment on my glasses. This meant so much from another with the most covetable red cats frames, and decided that I wouldn’t have to flee from this ridiculous decision that I’d safely made on the other side of New Year’s Eve.

The first gauntlet that was thrown down was to write about a wedding for seven minutes (surely impossibly short) and then read it out for feedback from Alexandra Pringle, former editor in chief of Bloomsbury, best-selling historian and screen writer Alex von Tunzelmann, and editor and consultant Faiza S Khan (quite frankly I’d have preferred to have sung Nessun dorma stark-naked). I felt sick, hot and sweaty, but I was stuck down the side of a long table making an elegant exit impossible….so I got on with it.

Below is what I produced - unedited and unchanged. What follows is how I edited it afterwards.

Before:

Rupert - was that his name - clearly was unhappy next to her in the pew. Was it last night’s fish, chip and Rattler misery-meal that still clung to her. Or perhaps her metronomic sniff signalling the social contagion of singledom. And here she was at yet another of her university acquaintances’ peacocking beauty parades - with her trusty grey dress, overly made-up face, and plastered on smile of desperation. She dreaded these coming togethers, always with the clear table plan positioning either next to some socially angular potential partner with parsley teeth and eating every ounce of air with details of his latest car purchase, never once asking her about her life, her hopes and dreams, who she really was - or next to some half dead, deaf great-uncle silently attempting to navigate the food into his mouth.

After:

Rupert – was that his name? – perceptibly moved away from me even though the pew resembled a particularly squashed tin of sardines. The slight odour of last night’s chip and Savy-B misery-meal plus a snotty sniff telegraphed my singledom to anyone who bothered to look, and as everyone knew, singletons are inconvenient at these extravagant ballets of happy ever-afters. 

Having being unceremoniously jilted with three weeks to go before my big day, here I was at the umpteenth wedding of a Insta-perfect couple who I could barely write a Christmas card to, never mind summon up the enthusiasm nor funds to select a gift from their curated Harrods’ list.  Standing in my non-iron charity find with a dribble of sweat tickling down my leg, face masked in pick me make-up, plus rictus grin, I was determined to navigate this without crying, getting horribly drunk or falling into bed with someone wanting a pub brag shag with a desperate over the hill 30 something-year-old – or indeed all three. 

The table plan was always a challenge for a person of non partner status….just where to safely, charitably hide me – the inconvenient gooseberry…..The usual positioning was either next to the parsley-toothed cousin who ate every ounce of air with the intricacies of a recent deal, or next to half-dead uncle silently, stoically navigating food into his mouth for endless mastication.

So I survived yesterday’s course. The feedback from Alexandra, Faiza and Alex was critically kind, and encouraging, without being patronising, whilst the standard of writing from other attendees frankly staggering. In a way, it was this that was perhaps the most tricky for my inner voice that continually chirped “what are you doing here? Everyone is so good in comparison. What must they think of my drivel”, similar to the “she’s thinner, cleverer, more successful and beautiful” subtitles that have accompanied me throughout my life.

So what’s next? I’ve decided that to get better I need to practice, like everyone else in the world….and that involves commitment and hard work, rather than waking up one day with the bestowed gift of being A Writer. Therefore, tomorrow sees the start of the Faber Academy’s “Getting Started: Beginners’ Fiction” course which I signed up for last night, and this blog is for me to try to be accountable to my intention to write….so I can continue to put my words out there, perhaps receive external feedback and hopefully chart my progress.

Time will tell……