I thought I'd share another question to the author chat going on right now at LibraryThing.com

It's going on until January 24th... stop by, ask a question.

Ok, I've been waiting to ask this. The Magic system. How did you come up with it? It's unique (at least as far as I've read) though it holds some similarities to other systems. Did it come whole cloth? Did you fight with it's development? Did you consciously or unconsciously 'borrow' from other authors?

Excellent question.

Honestly, the first idea for the Strands came to me in a dream. No joke.

I had spent a couple of months building the world, fleshing out the people, cultures, history, landscapes, etc. The one thing I kept putting off was how I wanted magic to work; I could not come up with anything I liked that did not feel hokey. I figured I would settle on something eventually, so I immersed myself in everything else about the world. Terrene took over every spare, waking thought I had. Apparently, it also wormed its way into my subconscious.

One night, I had a dream. I could not tell you what it was about, but to this day, I can still see this weave of glowing, gold strings floating together, hovering in the air while slowly shifting as if alive. I woke up and immediately wrote down “The Strands.” In thirty seconds, I had the idea of the nine types of Strands and their unique colors. Another thirty seconds later, I knew exactly how they would work together. Weaving Will with Fire in a certain pattern could create a bundled, burst of fire for the mage to control. The right Weave of Soul and Water together could craft a near-sentient being of water. Mixing the Strands together in different patterns and strengths could produce a number of incredible possibilities.

Now, I prefer low-magic worlds, so I did not want to give so much power to everyone in Terrene. Therefore, nearly everyone who could sense the Strands (a low number already) is only able to touch a handful of the types. In addition, how adept they are with one type might vary greatly from another. For example, a mage might be a natural when it comes to the crackling orange of Fire, but barely be able to see or grasp the wispy white of Air. What Weaves they can do would be very, very different from another mage that is adept with only Life and Stone.

I fought a little with the system’s development throughout writing Progeny, but only in the sense that I had created boundaries that my characters were forced to operate within. Rather than change the system, though, I let the story and plot reflect the challenges they faced. I think the book ‘feels’ more authentic because of this. Ingenuity and cleverness is as important as magic for the characters that can touch the Strands.

In all honesty, I do not think I borrowed from other authors. If so, it was unintentional. About the only thing I can think of is that Robert Jordan used the word ‘weave’ at times when referring to magic.

One last thing about the Strands: I was intentional about leaving the descriptions of the patterns of combined Strands vague, focusing on the colors and interactions instead. Since only people in Terrene that can touch the Strands will ever see the patterns, I wanted the reader to feel special; I wanted them to use their own idea of what these colorful (or sometimes not) Weaves looked like.