Free Guides/Workshops & Podcasts:

MsLexia downloadable workshops here (helps you pick your title/write synopsis/1st paragraph and pitch letter)
Philip Pullman here(Funny! Particularly when he kids ask him quesions about his own book he has no idea about)
Walter Murch here (about story-telling and applies to words as well as movies, very clear guidance in 'the cut' section)
How to write sex scenes, advice from the Girlfriend's Book Club click Culture Kiddo
Roald Dahl here (lots of tips from Dahl in his gravelly voice, click on 'The Man' section)
Helen Fielding chatting here (especially interesting if you're writing in chick lit genre)

Culture Kiddo's Reading Notes:

Sarah Winman's When God Was a Rabbit

ENDINGS- Sarah's chapter endings are wonderful emotional cliff hangers.She does it not in the Dan Brown-obvious way. She leaves us inside the belly of an emotion. Here are some examples:
1-"I never felt complete without him. In truth, I never would."
2-"'What are you doing?' I said. Pretending I'm walking on glass.' 'Is it fun?' 'Try it if you like.' 'OK,' I said, and I did. And it strangely was."
3-"That uninterrupted moment when she could dream and believe that all I had was hers."
4-"'Don't,' I said harshly, interrupting her. I knew the word that was to follow, and that night it was as word that would have punctured my heart with guilt."
5-"I felt the air sucked out of my lungs like life itself." 
6-"it had been sent from Her Majesty's Prison."

THE WONDERFUL SQUEWED EYES OF CHILDHOOD- 1-"'Fancy a Bazooka?' I asked, holding the gum out in my palm. 'No,' she said. 'I almost chocked last time I had one. Almost died, my mum said.' 'Oh,' I said, and put the gum back in my pocket, wishing I'd brought something less violent instead.
2-Mrs Penny as her mouth gorged a quarter of a bun, leaving a smear of liptick to compete with the ketchup.
3-His parents divorced-which I found extremely exciting-
4-I put god to bed with his usual late-night snack. His hutch was on the patio.
5-'You'll need a plaster,' he said. 'Probably,' she said. 'Maybe two.'
6-A few days later my brother and I awoke to shouts and terrifying screams. We converged on the landing holding an array of makeshift weapons - I, a dripping toilet brush; he, a long, wooden shoehorn.
7-Our first two guests arrived just as the sealant had been placed around their bath.
8-"'This is my forest,' I said. 'Is it now?'he said.... 'So if you stayed with us you could use this forest any time you wanted. Legally,' I said. 'Could I now?' he said,and he looked at me and smiled."

Joseph Heller’s Catch 22

CONTRAST- FOR VIVIDNESS- “thanked him crisply and glowed with self-satisfaction”, “the wet puffy sounds” FOR COMEDY- “engines rolled over disgruntedly on lollipop-shaped handstands”, “my closest friends, that’s as close as I let them go” FOR EMPHASIS- “he longed to cower but stood bolt upright instead”, “an eaten shell of a human building rocking perilously on the brink of collapse”

INTERESTING USE OF IRRELEVANCE- to add colour and personality “He had opposed his daughter’s marriage, because he disliked weddings” “Durban loved shooting skeet because he hated every minute of it and time passed slowly.. a single hour could be worth 11x7 years” Repetition For comedy- “Did not treat his desire to become a general as frivolously as Colonel Carthcart secretly suspected Colonel Korn secretly did” For ‘show not tell’ insight- “His data never was obtained from a reliable source, but always were obtained”, “It was not true that he wrote memorandums praising himself and recommending that his authority be enhanced to include all combat operations, he wrote memoranda”

CHOPPY DIALOGUE FOR PACE- “Guess how fast?” “Huh?” “They go.” “Who?” “Years.” “Years?” “Years, years, years.” “Why don’t you leave him alone?” 

BELOVED GROTESQUE- “I can just picture his liver” “they rolled themselves up like shivering anchovies, they squeezed themselves back into the plane” “Nurse Cramer was there and sizzled with sanctimonious anger like a damp firecracker... She ordered Y to get right back into his bed and blocked his path so he couldn’t comply... Her pretty face was more repulsive than ever”

Martin Amis's The Pregnant Widow

3 ADJECTIVES IN A ROW- Have only just started reading this but OMG there's a lot of three adjectives in a row. You'd think it would make the reading heavy and gloopy, but it really works to characterise stuff and you can use it for characterisation of people, things or just the rules of the world. Here are some quotes just from the first few chapters:

• (Italians) "spicks, greaseballs, dagos"
  
• (young men of Montale) "strangely noble, priestlike faces, nobly suffering"
  
• (girls) "colouring, bristling, blowing the stray strands"
  
• (Lily) "pinker, puffier, younger"
• (men when offered a BJ in the street) "they quail, they back off, they crumple"
  
• (the animal inside man) "beloved beast, moist and leathery in spiced darkness"
  
• (poet) "bookish,wordish, letterish"
  
• (neck) "swan ... ostrich ... giraffe"
  
• (foot) "curve of the insteps, visible flex of the ligaments, then ten daubs of crimson in five different sizes"

Eleanor Moran’s Breakfast in Bed