Bring your characters to life...

Have you ever wanted to design your own cartoons and bring the characters from your stories to life? If you have then check out toondoo.com.

As writers it can be important to get inspiration planning stories. At toondoo it is possible to create your own characters and make storyboards. The website is designed with children in mind, so it is easy to navigate your way around and subscription is free.

If you are looking for further help and support with your writing go to www.wordsworthreading.co.uk

CQC ask for care home experiences

Over the coming months, the CQC will be conducting over 250 unannounced inspections of home care services.


The CQC have requested that inorder to help them assess this sector, they want to hear about your experiences of home care services (whether you’ve received care yourself, if you know someone who has or if you’re a carer).


The CQC state "We value information sent to us about experiences of care and we encourage people to give feedback to us at any time. For our themed inspection of home care services however, we are asking people to complete a separate survey so that we can gather specific information to directly inform these inspections."


If you would like any advice or support regarding any aspect of your CQC registration please visit our website to find out how Words Worth Reading can help.

Hay invites teens

The Hay Festival announces more spaces for teens in their upcoming workshops. The Hay Festival offers a programme for 14-18 year olds and includes sessions such as:

Mix Music's JamPod sessions

UK Youth's You Can Do It DIY skills workshops

Electric guitar, bass, drumming and band sessions

The art of effective campaigning

Photography and film-making

Creative writing with screenwriter Will Osborne and poet Caroline Bird

Half term Hay!

The tents are up, the buntings flying, its time for the 25th Hay Festival! If you are looking for exciting activities this half term to keep little minds engaged and little hands busy the festival has lots of things to offer.

From story tellers, Helen Peters (The Big Adventure of the Smalls), Alex T Smith (Claude), Mei Matsuoka (The Great Sheep Shenanigan), Emma Dodd (Charlie & Bandit), Sarah McIntyre (You Can't Scare A Princess), Andrew Weale (Nora: The Girl Who Ate and Ate) and Chloe Inkpen (Zoe and Beans) to.....an enchanting performance from the Sealegs Puppet Theatre. Get in quick to book your The Selfish Giant tickets - they won't be there for long!

Visit the Hay Festival website for more information or take a look at their online 'blackboard' to start planning your visit.

Calling Freelance and Feature Writers

The London School of Journalism is offering a course in freelance and feature writing. The course covers starting out, readers and markets, what constitutes news, feature-writing and more.

The course is flexible in approach, geared to the specific needs of each writer. It consists of 12 lessons over 9-15 months, costing £325. You can take part by email or by post. For more information, visit www.lsj.org

If you would like help editing your manuscript, check out www.wordsworthreading.co.uk/manuscript-proofreading.php

Words Worth Looking Up

For the first time ever, Collins Dictionary is available free online. Collins Language, the dictionary arm of HarperCollins, has launched the website www.collinsdictionary.com. 


The service means that you can now access 220,000 dictionary entries, including, translations, synonyms and illustrative photos. It is possible to find correct spellings, use the thesaurus and even find words in over 35 languages. The website features more than one million audio pronunciations, highlighting British and American audio differences. 


The site offers access to two million full sentence usage examples. These have been taken from fiction, non-fiction, newspapers and magazines. Helping to put words into context. 


You can even access a word frequency graph, demonstrating the historical and contemporary use of the word over the last 500 years. This could be very helpful if you are thinking of writing historical fiction. 


Alex Brown, head of digital at Collins Language, said: "We've a big editorial team and 200 years of experience so we think we can bring something more to that online space than others." (Writers' Forum, April '12)

Millionaire Bootcamp

A group of 12 millionaire authors and experts in book marketing are coming together to deliver a three-day Bootcamp for budding writers. The Bootcamp, titled Millionaire Bootcamp, will help those interested in building a career in writing by providing information and ideas on how to turn a manuscript into an international bestseller.

Bootcamp managing director, Stephanie Hale, states; 'Relatively unknown entrepreneurs are making six- and seven-figures from self-publishing. It's time for authors to wake to this new era and grasp the opportunities available!' (Writers' Forum, April 12). 

For more information or to purchase a ticket, visit www.MillionaireAuthorsBootcamp.com

Need help with editing your manuscript? Check out the Words Worth Reading Ltd editorial services!