Welcome to Gaia! ::

When I was younger, my brother kept getting me into collectable card games: Pokemon, Magic, Magi Nation, Sailor Moon, Digimon... I've gotten rid of most of the cards, but I kept the ones that just felt special to me or had a particularly inspiring image or quote on them. I keep my favorites together in a big deck.

When I get writer's block I shuffle the deck, draw the top three cards, and try to figure out what it symbolizes in relation to my story. I don't decide beforehand what the cards symbolize. I interpret and make things up on the fly. If I can't come up with anything for a particular hand, I don't fixate on it. I just set them aside and move on to the next three. After all, I'm probably already frustrated from writer's block. I don't need to add to it. Often, I'll go through the whole deck, just to see what I come up with.

It shouldn't be too hard to make your own deck, even if you don't have any of your own trading cards yet. Check with a sibling or a cousin. Some cards are so common that an avid collector will gladly give them away. At local game shops, they'll sometimes have what is called a "common bin" where common cards are sold individually for about 10 cents each. Of course, you can always just by random packs of cards for your collection, but this is usually much more expensive and you have no idea what you're getting. (/end nerdiness)

that is awesome!! that really is an awesome method!! i never thought of that!!! i usually look out my window and find something interesting to watch (a falling leaf, a squirrel blah blah) and figure out what it's actions could symbolize in my story. Like how does this relate to this character....but i like yours MUCH better.