Idea-Rings
To create your own idea ring, print out the following PDF files on the front and back sides of a single page of cardstock. Slice out the 30 cards, hole punch each and then put onto a split ring.
Idea rings can then be used to come up with story ideas. Add your own cards or card cover.
Basic prompts
These were brainstormed by several NaNoWriMo participants.
Generation of the PDF files
The Idea Ring cards were created from several components using ruby and Prawn (Prawn is excellent for generating PDF files using scripting).
- data2.csv (30 lines) + data3.csv (30 lines): drawn from this spreadsheet or a similar one.. No headings are needed; no timestamp column: just the writing prompts (column B), and three pairs of word-pair combinations (columns C, D, E).
- front PDF template
- back PDF template
- front card background image
- back card background image
- ruby_script1.rb (front page)
- ruby_script2.rb (back page)
Plots and Pixar tips
Here is a new set: idea_ring_plots_2013-01-09.pdf (2013-09-01)
Ruby and Prawn
To install the various ruby script prerequisites, just do:
- gem install prawn
- gem install open-uri
- gem install fastercsv
Photos
Here are photos of the finished product:
All content is made available to folks under the Creative Commons Attribution - Non-Commercial - Sharealike license (so you are free to modify the script and components however you like as long as it is for non-commercial purposes and as long as you license them under the same CC license).
