Izolda Trakhtenberg, Storyteller

Playwright, Author, Director, Podcaster

about

Writer, speaker, singer, educator

Category: writing

  • Promise yourself …

    Under promise and over deliver even if it is to yourself. Set your goals and then incinerate them. So, what are you invested in? Figure it out and then go to work! Tag someone who needs to see this. #goals #goalsetting #writing #amwriting #personaldevelopment #success #dedicationhasnolimitation #whatareyouinvestedin #wordcount 

  • The best investment

    Today’s Show Up! Journal power words: I spent yesterday nursing a flareup of my knee injury. Ironically, my knee hurts more when I sit still so I had to keep moving. Writing takes much longer when you have to walk instead of sitting still. So, I had to record into my phone and go voice…

  • Where We Create – Anywhere We Can

    I took the bus home from a day-trip to New York last night. While riding back to DC, I posted an image last night of a person who was driving while texting. I called him a dipsh*t because he was driving and also doing something on his phone. In my mind, if you are driving…

  • Moving Beyond Terror = Showing Up

    Yesterday, when I promised to write about this topic, I thought I would be rarin’ to go. I’m amazed how insidious that self-doubt can be. I’ll do anything to avoid getting my butt in the seat and doing the work. I’ll walk the dog, I’ll meditate (again). I’ll drink more water. By themselves, these things…

  • Resistance Isn't Futile. It just wants you to think resisting it, is.

    I’m reading Steven Pressfield’s excellent book, “The War of Art.” If you have any desire to pursue your art, run towards this book with open arms. So far, it’s amazing, validating, and oh so frustrating. Pressfield points out all the hidden places we run to keep ourselves from working on our art/craft. I’ve winced more…

  • Derek Sivers' "If not hell yeah, then no." – My lesson on saying no

    I recently read Derek Siver’s excellent, short book, “Anything You Want.” One of the chapters is titled, “If not hell yeah, then no.” It means that unless you are excited to do something, don’t do it. Say no. Then, you leave yourself open to cool new opportunities that you will be thrilled to accept. I…

  • On Touchstones – We need them in storytelling and in life

    Everything in my life has been coming back to relevance. As I develop this new phase of my life, I am trimming away anything that doesn’t serve me. I have modified my patterns of behavior, thought modes, and emotional triggers. My motto is: If it doesn’t serve me, it goes. That perspective makes things easier,…

  • The Importance of a Target Audience – how I learned the lesson

    Yesterday, I learned a lesson about the importance of working with the people who will best respond to your efforts. I have read a great deal about identifying your avatar and then producing and marketing to that avatar. The avatar can be defined as the ideal receiver of your product. It could be the ideal…

  • "Never Tell Me The Odds" – Pushing out of our comfort zones

    Well, of course, I would quote one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite movies. That’s Han Solo from the Empire Strikes Back. When I was thirteen years old and seeing it for the first time, that line solidified something in me. It started my love affair with pushing my boundaries. I’ve jumped…

  • Need Story Ideas? Try autocorrect

    “Where do you get your ideas?” I heard this question asked at every author panel I attended this past Balticon. We all want to know the secret password to the wellspring, don’t we? Before I started writing fiction, I used to believe that I could never get original, smart, or exciting ideas about which to…

  • "And Then What Happened?" – What makes for compelling stories

    I won’t “James Michener” you and talk about how at the beginning of language, people were sitting around bonfires telling stories. Let’s all agree that they did. The oral tradition goes back as far as we do, certainly, and probably further back to the Neanderthals, Early Modern Humans. We tell stories for a variety of…

  • Storytelling – isn't that what we all do?

    I’ve realized recently that everything I do involves storytelling. And I like it. I love spinning a tale and getting my audience excited to know what happens next. It is just as thrilling for me as it is for the sixth grader who can’t help but ask, “So, what happened next?” I try to do…

  • Things Break – How We Deal With That Defines Us

    My thanks go out to all who worked so hard to make this Balticon as good as it could be. I saw so many of you running, running, running, putting out fires I never knew about. Sure, there were troubles. We all had some. But, really, it was a huge undertaking and not without some…

  • We Are With You – On supportive creative communities

    Yesterday, I facilitated my “Present Out Loud” workshop at Balticon (the Maryland Regional Science Fiction/Fantasy convention). The workshop is on how to present/read your work at bookstore events, interviews, audio narrations, and workshops. We worked on breath technique, voicing, characterization, and how to differentiate your narrator from your characters and their dialogue. But mostly, we…

  • The Mother of Communication? – lessons on writing, talking, and connection

    Yesterday, at Balticon, I had the honor of sitting on a panel that discussed how to adapt fiction to stage or screen. One of the questions the moderator asked was to define the nuts and bolts of doing that sort of adaptation. One of the other panel members said that you needed to only the…