Nappies and naughty bits for Kiwi author

Natalie Buchanan juggles the needs of a young family with a new career writing saucy Mills and Boon stories.

On October 5 last year, Natalie Buchanan went under the knife, giving birth to premature twins by casaerean section.

The next morning, she turned her mind to steamy romance.

Propped up with pillows, the 33-year-old former librarian – now a mother of four children under four – was hooked up to a drip and a laptop.

The drip was to steady her system after the twins' arrival.

The laptop was for meeting the deadline of her own arrival, into the world of published authors of the Mills and Boon Sexy Sensation series.

The Christchurch mother had not told her London publishers she was heavily pregnant before the word came through that if she could deliver the necessary changes to her manuscript within one week, she would have her first book deal, for All Night with the Boss.

With the twins in incubators and their mother feeling "absolutely dreadful" from the caesarean and a reaction to the epidural, Buchanan found herself writing about the temptations of an office affair; fine-tuning a hero who spoke in sexy, low growls, characters who received warm flushes to their nether regions, and irresistibly steamy scenes involving swirling, rubbing, squeezing and teasing.

While characters performed their mating dance, Buchanan's husband and two other young children waited for wife and mummy to come home.

And when she did, after five days in hospital, Buchanan pulled two all-nighters, not with a boss but with her computer, and sometimes attached to a double-express breast pump – possibly the furthest from a sex scene one could imagine.

But her imagination came through, and less than 12 months on, she has joined the very select group to secure a multi-book contract with the world's most famous romance publishers.

Natalie Buchanan is a left-handed vegetarian who cuts meat for her children with her right hand. It is fair to say she is no slouch.

She is one of hundreds of Kiwi romance writers, but one of only a handful of published Mills and Boon authors in this country.

Before her OE, Buchanan earned an arts degree in English and music from the University of Canterbury followed by a masters in library and information studies from Victoria University, Wellington.

Then London beckoned where she met her future husband.

Like the ubiquitous romance hero, Dave King was tall, dark and, well, handsome, in a Harry Potteresque way. (King is now the acting chief reporter and digital editor at The Press.)

The couple met at her cousin's London flat, fell in love, returned to New Zealand, and had their first daughter, Kathleen, now four.

Then, midway through a law degree – "'cos, you know, it's good for you to keep your brain going" – out popped child number two.

"Full-of-beans" Henry, now three, was not a baby who liked to sleep, so in the darkness Buchanan plotted.

First, she tried a children's book but, as she puts it, she "basically sucks" at rhyme.

Then she discovered the pivotal book for writers, No Plot, No Problem, leading her to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which encourages wannabe authors to blat out a 50,000-word novel during the 30 days of November.

"The whole point is that it doesn't matter how bad it is," she says, swapping a peg in each twin's mouth for a Cruskit.

"The achievement is doing it."

Buchanan couldn't wait until November. She just got typing.

One of her NaNoWriMo practices became All Night with the Boss, the 200-page love story of a Kiwi temp in a London office who desperately tries not to fall for her swoony boss.

Buchanan writes under the name Natalie Anderson. The surname is a loving nod to her grandmother.

Buchanan's parents split before she was born and she and her sister, Charlotte, lived with their mother and grandmother – three generations of bookworm women under the same roof.

"Grandma was an addict. You know how old people are unable to sleep at night? She would read two or three books through the night."

Grandma's staple reading fodder was Agatha Christies and Mills and Boons and Buchanan nobbled them all. Those family years leave sweet memories.

"We had a mandatory lie-in on Sunday mornings," she says, as Henry takes to banging an empty biscuit tin with wooden spoons.

"We'd have to sleep in – or read rather – and then Grandma would take Charlotte and I to the Edgeware Road bakery. Then we'd stop by the Edgeware second-hand bookshop and stock up."

As a child, Buchanan wrote "Agatha Christie rip-offs", taking her lead from the books her grandmother favoured.

Harlequin Mills and Boon readers keep a low profile – it's not exactly classed as highbrow literature.

Statistics, however, divulge a different story.

Last year, Harlequin sold more than 160 million books worldwide. That's more than five books sold every second.

"I went through years and years of reading Booker Prize nominees and they're really good books but it's not all or nothing," Buchanan says, heating steak and kidney mush for the twins while Henry makes a telephone out of dough.

Kathleen will be picked up from kindy in half an hour.

"There's room in people's lives for everything. Sometimes you just want to escape to a book that will put you in a good mood and off you go.

"I could never write the great Kiwi novel because I just don't have enough angst in my life."

Buchanan believes an interest outside the family cocoon is vital. This new job, which she says pays "a good part-time" wage, is her escape.

"It's just so much fun.

"I don't mind sitting up at three in the morning any more. I've got something to think about – plot twists."

After a full day's work – Buchanan running a tribe of four and King running a busy newsroom – the pair have family time and put the children to bed by around 7pm.

Then Buchanan hits the keyboard for two or three hours each night.

"I look back now at life pre-kids and wonder what I did with all that time.

"But Dave is amazing with the kids. He's hands-on and he takes them for hours when I need time to write."

Preparing for the NaNoWriMo endurance, Buchanan researched the Harlequin Mills and Boon website.

They were looking for hot stories for 20-something urban women. It was a catalyst.

In December 2005, Buchanan polished the first three chapters of All Night with the Boss and sent them to London's Harlequin Mills and Boon offices with a plot synopsis.

Three months later she found out she was pregnant, suffering crippling morning sickness.

In April 2006, the publishers requested a full manuscript.

So, while hubby painted the lounge, she went back to live with her mother, who entertained the children over two weekends while she threw herself into the book and her characters' clothes on the bedroom floor.

The manuscript was returned with revision requests.

"They said they liked my style but... There were five pages telling me everything that was wrong with it."

The last line of the letter became Buchanan's touchstone.

"We wouldn't be asking you to do this if we didn't believe in your potential."

More revisions arrived.

Buchanan was "large and immobile" with twins. At 32 weeks pregnant she sent what she assumed would be the final draft.

Two weeks later the babies – who were breach – made their emergency entrance.

The twins were born at 9pm.

When their father returned home at 3am, he scanned the emails, including one from the London editor proposing a publication date, if only some final revisions could be written within the week.

King ummed and aahed about even showing his wife the message but he dutifully took it in.

"He just looked at me and said 'nothing is impossible'," Buchanan says now – and she borrowed that line for the book's dedication.

"He borrowed his brother's laptop and away I went."

King says he is extremely proud of his wife's achievements – although he admits he skips through the saucier bits and refuses to be drawn on comparing his own bedroom prowess to that of Buchanan's imaginary heroes.

"All I can say is that she has a very vivid imagination. That bit of our life belongs to us and this is her amazing ability to imagine.

"It is just the greatest part-time job anyone can have. She's sitting there in her head writing novels that keep her sane."

In under a year with a busy brood, Buchanan has had her first book published, with two more in the pipeline for release next year.

She has a multi-book contract and is mid-way through her fifth book.

Despite characters who are often breathless with lust, Buchanan will not classify the novels as erotica. She calls them romance.

"Gone are the days of women sitting around waiting for a man on the white charger. They know their own mind, they know what they want and they're not afraid to go and get it.

"But it is fiction. They are larger than life, they do have issues, they do have heavier baggage than hopefully most of us have."

- © Fairfax NZ News