Making Sense is a collection of short stories all based around a single idea, that of people, different people in different places, all trying to make sense out of where they are in their lives.

In some cases the issue is who they are, in others where they are. In each instance the protagonist tries to answer their questions by using one of their 'other' senses rather than the five physical senses or even a 'sixth sense'. So in some cases it's a sense of reason, for others it's their sense of justice or perhaps a sense of place.

Most are plotless, character studies, slices out of people's lives. None are pointless.

A lot of the stories are monologues and I would be lying if I said I wasn't influenced in these by Alan Bennett's work, particularly his Talking Heads television series.

I've suffered from writer's block before. The first was a three-year gap before I started my first novel. My second was half-way through my third novel. To be honest I thought I'd had it and then, whilst sitting stop a No 44 bus in the middle of Glasgow, I pulled out my notebook and wrote down the five senses, the co-called sixth sense and then I just kept going: sense of honour, sense of wonder, sense of place ... and on and on.

I went home, sat down at my desk and wrote a short story, 'Relish', and more followed. Over the next few weeks I found myself writing and writing and then, as suddenly as it all began, it dried up. Nothing.