Bringing a book child into the world usually means it takes on a life of its own pretty quickly, and there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it. Sort of like real children, I suppose (I have three, I know what I’m talking about), only a bit more papery and a whole less messy.

Before Christmas, I wrote a book. Most of my work has ghosts, ghouls, supernatural entities, or occasionally some sort of fantasy realm which, shock, also features ghosts, ghouls, and other supernatural entities. I’ve done better than I ever expected; I am considered a prolific short story writer, with more than 60 pieces published and two collections out, and as many as three horror books coming out this year.

This book was different. It was aimed squarely at an audience of one, my seven-year-old daughter. She’s been very clear that while daddy is a writer, she’s not interested in any of his spooky stories so this one was for kids. It has Daughter in the lead role, because she asked me to write a book for her. 

It has talking cats, because we are a cat family. It has magic butterflies, because she specifically wanted a butterfly. It has elves that tidy up without being seen (that’s my wife and I). It even has a rather charming fairy queen (that’s my wife). And a troll king (me), because trolls rock. And it has a genuine message of finding magic in imagination, the world around you, and celebrating differences — often because we’re often still more similar than we realise.

Although I have intentions of sending it out to publishers after an edit, there is exactly one copy, and that one copy was written very specifically for one little girl.

So can you imagine my mix of delight and horror when she announced that she’d shown it to her teacher and the book was now going to be read to the class over a number of days and weeks (it’s about 16,000 words, so it’s an actual proper book).

It’s one thing to write a book. It’s quite another thing for somebody you don’t know to announce that they’re bringing that book to an audience of a gaggle of little people you don’t know either. Read me! Don’t look at me!

And then, perhaps the most humbling moment. Because, Dear Reader, I had to write a letter to the teacher. Because, Dear Reader, there were a couple of lines in the book included simply to make Daughter laugh. Lines which, while they would probably go down well with most young audiences, aren’t necessarily ones you’d want a teacher to read aloud during story time.

So the note was something like: “thank you for your interest in reading the book. On p14, change ‘fart in your face’ to ‘burp in your face’. On p61, change ‘in the nuts’ to ‘butt’, or anything else you’d prefer.” Now, context. 

The characters speaking in both instances are cats. And cats, as you may be aware, are not bound by human rules. To describe them as chaos gremlins would be fairly accurate. Also, in the p61 case, one of the cats — deliberately cast as a sort of manic energy in the book and inspired by a cat of ours who died last year — is attempting to be really brave and defend Daughter from what it thinks is a troll that might hurt her.

But it’s not just a crude moment to make a kid laugh. The character the cat is threatening to charge is actually a squirrel called Acorn, who’s been turned into a boy (they all end up best friends in the end). So there was some semblance of logic, honestly. I did really think this through. I thought it through so much it didn’t even occur to me that it might break containment and flutter off into the wild minds of people outside my household.

These were all going to be edited out before I started shopping the book around, and once Daughter had had a chance to tell me the things she did and didn’t like about it (she’s a budding literary critic with a sometimes startling level of intellectual and emotional intelligence). I just wanted her to have something special that was just for her.

Ultimately, trying my hand at a children’s book was a very good thing. Stretching beyond that comfort zone is always worthwhile, though if it ends up making more money than my horror stuff I will be forever amused.

Daughter’s already asked for a sequel. So watch this space — though the cats will be a bit better behaved next time.

• David O’Mahony is Irish Examiner assistant editor, short story writer, and novelist