I'M driving through the small towns that edge the North Sea tidelines on the way to see my parents. Towns that look as if they've been scrubbed clean by the salt and wind. I've got Miles Davis's album Sketches Of Spain weaving its atmospheric magic out of the car stereo. The lonely horns, relaxed tempo and flamenco percussion echo the mood outside the windows, as the sea haar drifts slowly between the houses.

I zoom (figuratively - I'm doing the speed limit) past a church emptying its congregation into the street. A couple walk arm in arm past an old man asleep at the bus stop. I've got no explanation as to why the music fits so well, but it does. Driving to Rackwick in Orkney years ago a tape of dub reggae did the same, soundtracking the Pentland Firth's powerful swell battering into the cliffs of Hoy in both a surreal, and perfect way. That day, Dreadlocks In The Moonlight became an unlikely Orkney anthem.

On the way to my parents' house, I always drive past my old high school. It's impossible to drive past an old school (or an old place of work) without thinking about some of your experiences associated with the place. This time English class popped into my head, or specifically writing stories for English homework. I enjoyed English at school, especially short story assignments. It was always met with a mix of mortification and excitement when, on occasion, my story would be picked and read aloud in class by the teacher. Much like playing a concert is nowadays, hearing your own words read (or sung) aloud in a room carries with it a strange mix of embarrassment and pride. You're happy with what you've done, and want everyone to like it, but at the same time it leaves you vulnerable and worried that maybe you've revealed too much of yourself.

Both my grandmother and my mother are keen advocates of writing short stories for fun. Neither had any aspirations of ever turning it into a career, although my mum once had a story published in the 1980s in the children's magazine Pepper Street (my sister and I dined out on bon-bons for a week or so after than one).

Arriving at my parents' house and catching up over a pot of tea, we have a rummage through a pile of my mother's old notebooks that she's found, full of her short stories. Of the selection that I read (from 1958), A Holiday In Troon is my favourite. Not surprisingly describing a holiday, taken in Troon, it is written in the natural, bold style of a 10-year-old. A simple storyline (they go on a picnic, eat some "delicious" sandwiches, have a swim in the sea then go home and have chips for tea) with easy descriptions ("we opened the bright red front door"; "we sat on the golden sand"). It is an interesting picture of my mother at that age. Short stories are good for this, I think, offering a brief but revealing insight into the writer, be it a family member or a moody-looking novelist in the review pages. They get right to the point, and the good ones will stick in your mind and mix themselves up with your own memories.

I'm happy to be involved with a new short story project called Days Like This, run in conjunction between Radio Scotland and the Scottish Book Trust and launched this week. Everyone in Scotland has the opportunity to contribute, from the fisherman to the politician, the teenager to the octogenarian, bus drivers, lawyers, poets, hairdressers, teachers, delinquents, from Wick to Wigtown, all are invited to write their own short story: something true, an experience, an anecdote, or an event that centred around one memorable day.

If it works it'll be the ultimate literary time capsule for Scotland in 2008. Quite a book. So no excuses people, get writing.