DAWN O’Porter is so annoying. No sooner has she achieved television fame with a series of lippy, revealing documentaries, in which she trained as a geisha or lived with Mormon polygamists, than she’s written a classy novel, and landed herself a three-book deal as a result.

This fringe-wearing force of nature may no longer be producing cheeky television that makes you sit up straight, but now O’Porter has come up with The Cows, a story that takes the reality of three women’s lives and cleverly interweaves them to reveal the challenge for women in society today.

It’s a really well-written, funny book – the title comes from the notion women are classed as creatures born to breed – that suggests an author with years of experience. Some might find it galling that someone with so little background in writing could pull it off so easily.

“That’s not the case,” grins the Dunbartonshire-born writer/presenter, speaking almost as quickly as she rattled through a series of programmes that made her one of the most talked about women on TV.

“There was definitely hair-pulling along the way. That was because the idea for the book featured three women who didn’t have kids and then halfway through writing I found I was going to have a baby. [Her son, Art, is now two.] I had to bring that experience into the book.

“To make it more difficult I didn’t have a structure for the book. It wasn’t all planned out, and some days it was really stressful.”

How did her husband cope with his wife spending so much time in her own head? O’Porter is married to Irish-born Hollywood star Chris O’Dowd, from whom she took the "O" in his surname.

“Well, he dealt with a lot because I had quite a few meltdowns while writing, and of course I was dealing with the baby as well.

“There was one point when we were in New York and I hated every word I’d put down at that point, and I went out for a walk in the pouring rain. I came home and just sobbed on the floor.

“Chris just opened a bottle of wine and had me sit around the table and got me to talk about why I hated it, and what I wanted it to be.

“It was great because I got all my fears and anxieties out and then deleted everything I’d done. The next day it started to happen.”

She adds: “In many ways, the drama, the anxiety I felt when writing over the eight-month period worked. But then what happens with fiction is once the story starts to come, you become totally consumed with it. You can’t talk about anything else to anybody.”

O’Porter never took to writing as a way of showing the world a new skill. “Writing always came first for me,” she says. “As a teenager I wrote all the time. In fact, I wanted to become a journalist.”

Dawn Porter was just seven when she lost her mother to cancer. She and her sister Jane then moved from Scotland to Guernsey, where they were raised by their aunt and uncle.

She admits she dealt with the loss by blocking it out, allowing her imagination to fill the void. Looking at her on television, a ball of mischievous energy, taking on challenges such as virtually starving herself to demonstrate what it takes to achieve the Hollywood "size zero" (UK size four) figure, gives the impression she was a handful as a girl?

“Mmm, I don’t know. I think I was a high-energy kid who was desperate to be adored. I don’t think I was naughty because I so wanted to be loved and to be liked, although I was always a bit high-tempo.” She adds: “I’m not much of a diva though.”

Could the loss of her mother help explain her desire to cram as much into life as possible? “Definitely,” she says. “You become so aware that time can run out at any minute so you have to make the most of life. It was a very direct impact upon me.”

On leaving school, she decided to become an actress, but realised that wasn’t her at all. “I got to third year in drama college but I really didn’t enjoy it. In fact, not so long ago I did a bit part in [Channel 4 drama series] Skins but I didn’t like the experience. I like to be me. I like to have my own voice.

“I fell into a TV career completely by accident. In my last year at college I did a radio and TV broadcasting course instead of acting. And now I know, having married an actor – thank God I’m not one too. There’s only room for one actor in a marriage.”

Yes, aren’t they fundamentally flawed creatures? “Totally,” she agrees. “They spend their lives trying to be someone else. It’s not right.”

After work experience on the television series Baddiel And Skinner Unplanned, as well as a brief spot on the Channel 4 hidden-camera show Balls Of Steel, O'Porter wrote her first book, Diaries Of An Internet Lover (about her forays into internet dating), then came to widespread attention in 2007 with her extreme dieting documentary Super Slim Me.

Television proved perfect for O’Porter, a woman with a huge personality who didn’t want to play anyone but herself. What came across was someone with warmth and natural curiosity. She liked to push boundaries, enter arenas such as mail-order brides with an air of innocence while managing to ask the tricky questions in viewers' minds (a little like Louis Theroux, but without the anorak personality).

Did she ever feel television exploited her, asking to put herself on the line? “I was always exploiting myself,” she says. “Sometimes ideas were suggested, and there were things I was uncomfortable with (such as Dawn Goes Lesbian) but nothing that made me unhappy. And my job was to get stuck in. The only time I got annoyed was when a voiceover was edited and it would become a headline, but now with writing I know if I upset someone it’s all my own words."

Was there always a worry about what she would do next? Go into space? Go inside the White House? “Motherhood was the next step,” she says, smiling.

Her British TV success saw Porter courted by Hollywood and she moved to Los Angeles in 2008. When the TV work fizzled out, Porter was too proud to come back home.

She met O’Dowd after he Facebooked her and she invited him to her 30th birthday party. Porter knew in a heartbeat this was the man she would marry, which she did in 2012.

O'Dowd's fame soared after he starred in 2011 comedy Bridesmaids. How difficult is it to accept the relative anonymity that comes with being married to a major film star? “It can be demanding,” she says with a wry smile. “When you walk down the street with Chris it’s quite hard-going. It’s about stopping constantly for selfies. But if he’s getting too much attention I just grab him by the hand and drag him away.

“People recognise me sometimes, but I’m not a famous person. If I were still doing TV it would be different and we’d both get noticed, but I like it now when I’m on my own and life is quiet. When we’re out and people get all starry with him I just retreat to the bar.”

It was when the television work faded that O’Porter decided to try and get back to writing. A publisher who’d seen her newspaper columns put the idea in her head and husband O'Dowd pushed her forwards.

“A publisher called me up and asked if I’d ever thought of writing young adult fiction. I said,‘God, no!’ but then they offered me a two-book deal. If I hadn’t had that offer I don’t think I’d have had the nerve to start writing fiction.”

Her first book, the semi-autobiographical Paper Aeroplanes, dealt with topics including teen friendship and bereavement. It was very successful. “It was my dream to do it. I just didn’t think I would do it until I was 60. It’s great. I’m writing fiction, but it’s me. It’s about reaching into the bowels of my own mind, saying all the things you don’t normally get a chance to say.”

She smiles:“And I do have an insatiable addiction for being heard.”

After she married Chris O’Dowd, Porter became O'Porter. Why take just the "O" from her husband's surname? “It was a way of taking something, but not really changing anything,” she explains. “And I thought it would look really good on book covers. Plus I loved the idea of having an apostrophe. And I could never have been Dawn O’Dowd. I just don’t know who that person is.”

She adds: “My dad lives near Loch Lomond and he has two girls, and we’re all precious about keeping our names."

Not only was her husband happy with this partial acknowledgement of his surname, their son, Art, has become an O’Porter. “I think it may even have been Chris’s idea. He’s quite a feminist when it comes down to it.”

Feminism is important to O’Porter. “Things are getting better, but there’s lots that needs to be improved," she says. "For example, I’m sick of the media saying there are no funny women around. There are loads of women who are funny. It’s just that men keep on getting the jobs. Give them a chance.

“The reason I called the book The Cows is because it's still expected that women reproduce. It’s still seen as odd or controversial when they don’t.”

Does being attractive prove to be a drawback for women in society? “I guess so. I think there is a feeling with some men of, ‘She’s too pretty to be funny, or clever.’ But it's changing.” She adds, grinning: “I haven’t had too much of that. I don’t think I’m pretty enough. My career has been about self-motivation. It’s never been about my looks or my body.”

Not so sure about that, Dawn. Television worships the aesthetic. But she certainly hasn’t sold herself as a sex bomb. She’s never played the girly.

“No, but I’ve been lucky. I’m now writing for TV, a series, and I have a three-book deal. And there’s another child to slot in somewhere. But I’m where I want to be.”

O’Porter isn’t at all captivated by the Hollywood lifestyle. “Our life is very domestic,” she says of home in West Hollywood. “We have Irish friends, and it’s all very ordinary, but the sun is always shining. And although we meet famous people all the time they’re all very nice. You can meet someone like Brad Pitt and you just talk about the kids and the dogs.”

As a young girl in Guernsey she always wanted the life she has now. “When you’re young you want to be famous. But as you get older the dream becomes about being successful. As success for me now is getting paid to write.”

Dawn O'Porter's new novel The Cows is published by HarperCollins, £14.99

She'll be discussing the book in Glasgow next week at Glamour Book Club welcomes Dawn O'Porter in Waterstones, Sauchiehall Street this Tuesday, April 11 at 6.30pm