Critique partner again

I've known Kathy for a long time and remember her first book and the revisions. We had a fun time with finding all the It was starts. She's a great writer and I'm eagerly waiting her return to the States. We've been through both joy and sadness together. Janet

1. For you, which comes first the characters or the plot?
The Characters definately come first. I need to know then before I can decide what kind of situations I can put them into.

2. How do you create your characters?
They are composits of people I have met, or someone's who story I heard. Once I figure out one character, the second one is developed by pretty much choosing a person whose goals are at odds with the fisrt.

3. Do you plan ahead or go with the flow?
I do not write a full synopsis or outline, but I do have a general idea of where the story is going before I begin. Often it takes off on its own, despite some planning but for the most part they end up where I expect.

4. How much research do you do and how do you go about it?
I do as much research as is necessay to make the characters, setting, and plot believable. Since I write contemporary romance and tend to set my stories in placec I am familiar with, I'd probably say I do less research that a historical writer, but I still fact check what I write about real places, legal matters, police matters or medical referances.

5. How do you select goals and the reasons your characters what to accomplish these goals?
It usually springs out of character's past. The more complex the character's past, the more motivated they are towards their goals, and the strong the conflict with anyone who stands in their way.

6. Tell us about your latest release.
"Miuphy's Law" is a romantic suspense. A sometimes comical road trip of two people who must rely on each other, despite a mutual distrust, to avoid being found by a villinous murderer who wants to stop them form returning to America to testify against him.

7. What's on your backlist?
Check my wesite at www.katattalla.com

8. What are you working on now?
I am revising my forst release, Homeward Bound for re-release and then it is back to my romantic suspense, "China Blue"