Today, Katie Rose Guest Pryal is at Traveling With T to talk about her new book (look for it June 6th!)- Chasing Chaos! Chasing Chaos is being published by Velvet Morning Press (and is available for pre-order now!)

1. How did you come up with the title Chasing Chaos?

Regarding the title itself—Chasing Chaos—I’d been tooling around with titles for a while, and I knew that I wanted to touch on something with the word Chaos. It was my husband, the physics major, who actually put the two words together, late at night when he was reading the Economist and I was struggling with titles. So I have him to thank for that.

 

2. When you think of Daphne, do you think she actively chases chaos or is just unlucky to attract chaos?

I don’t think anyone attracts chaos, in the layperson meaning of chaos, like bad luck or messy occurrences. I think some people make bad choices and need to make better choices. I don’t think Daphne falls into that category either. But what I think doesn’t matter, of course. Because Daphne, without a doubt, believes that she attracts bad luck.

One of the interesting things about chaos—the scientific concept—is that it is not random. Randomness and chaos are two totally different things. Chaos has patterns. For a layperson (and I’m including me in that group), learning about chaos is fascinating: how it came to be, how scientists from all fields started seeing what we now call the “butterfly effect.” Once scientists had the instruments to gather data at smaller and smaller scales, scientists were able to show that a tiny change in an input value would have a massive change in an output value—in a predictable fashion. Now, the output itself wouldn’t be predictable, but the change would be. (Are you asleep yet? Sorry! One of the best things about being a writer is you have an excuse to geek about about stuff you wouldn’t ordinarily have time for.)

Daphne wouldn’t understand all of this, and that’s not the point. Daphne believes, because of the things that have happened to her throughout her life, that she’s cursed, essentially. Daphne’s not a scientist; she’s empathic. She’s a reader of people. She’s grateful that she’s found anyone at all who will love her, like her best friend Greta.

Everyone makes a bad decision now and then. That’s just life. But Daphne has a hard time seeing that. Fortunately, she has Greta to keep her on track.

 

3. When I look at your Twitter timeline, I see tweets about your books and writing, but also opinions and thoughts about social issues. How do you balance your interests on Twitter (and other forms of social media)?

Oh, my Twitter timeline. Hahaha. Part of my writing job is to be a freelance journalist. I’m a legal correspondent for a couple of different magazines, plus I write columns for some others. Basically, I figured out how to be paid to have opinions! (My father is shaking his head right now.) Part of being a freelance journalist is maintaining a platform, and Twitter is one of those platforms. I share a piece, and then I engage with readers about the issues that it has raised, often on Twitter.

 

4. You are a lipstick. Tell us what color you would be and your name.

Vamp by Chanel. Ask anyone.

 

5. You write a series. Should readers read Entanglement and Love and Entropy first? Or will they be able to start with Chasing Chaos and not feel lost?

It is true that Chasing Chaos is the third in the series. But I deliberately took a page (heh) from Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series and wrote books that would stand alone. Reading Chasing Chaos first will not spoil the first two books, and you don’t need to reading the first two books to understand Chasing Chaos.

Here’s why: The main characters shift from book to book: Entanglement, for example, focuses mostly on Greta. Chasing Chaos is Daphne’s story. Shifting main characters allows the books to be their own entities, while still existing in the same world and allowing readers to feel invested in the characters.

Buy Links:

Entanglement (#1): http://amzn.to/1Uc25WN

Love and Entropy (#2): http://amzn.to/1SmXOPc