When To Give Up
Weekly roundup: Our first "Let's Fix Stories!" episode, BTS of our work as creators, discussions about perseverance in creative entrepreneurship, and how writers can stand out from AI content
Weekly roundup time—what have you been up to this week, OBA Nation?
I’ll go first: I *almost* ended up at the animal shelter to get a cat because I had a breakdown the other night when I watched the Disney movie Oliver and Company for the first time. I was already missing my late fur baby and lonely in a quiet house since my husband has been training out of state for a month, and the movie suggestion from came without any preparation for that opening scene. That’s a bit off topic, but it’s how my week of creative exhaustion culminated. 😅 The rest of what my friends and I chatted about at OBA Media this week is listed below for you!
Now it’s your turn! Join in the conversation and share what creative juices have been flowing in your head this week. We thrive off of inspiration from each other!
Cheers,
(One Brilliant Arc Editor-in-Chief)
P.S. Scroll all the way down to make sure you don’t miss the FIRST episode of our new podcast, where we edit our very own
’s short story in real time with you!📑 WHAT WE’VE BEEN CHATTING ABOUT THIS WEEK AT OBA MEDIA:
"Unpromptability" in the Age of AI: What Makes Writing Stick, and What Makes it Forgettable
Hot take: Style is dead.
At least, the version of “style” most online creators are clinging to.
We’re living in an era where AI can mimic your tone, your sentence flow, and your emoji usage with unsettling accuracy. It can write in Hemingway, in Austen, in “Twitter thread bro.” Hell, it can even write like me — if you feed it enough samples.
And that’s the problem. If your voice can be prompted, it’s not a voice. It’s a filter.
To stand out today, you need more than a vibe. You need presence.
Presence is what makes a reader go, “Only you could have written this.”
It’s the unique lens through which you see the world — and the courage to let that lens color your work.
And in an age where AI is mass-producing “content,” this is what separates memorable from forgettable.
Let me show you how to build it.
🎧NEW Podcast: “Let’s Fix Stories!”
🎉The first episode of our new podcast is here!! 🎉 We’re taking a look at real stories from real writers, and offering real feedback in real time. Watch how our team works with storytellers to make their stories the best they can be and pick up a couple tips for your own story!
Subscribers to our newsletter get an early release of every podcast episode we put out, both “Let’s Talk Stories” and “Let’s Fix Stories”.
Ep. 1--"Caution: Kids on the Road"
A panel of professional writers, editors, and story coaches from OBA Media take a look at a short story written by Charles Rodriguez, calling out strengths, options for improvement, and showing that editing your story to be the best it can be doesn’t have to be a scary process! We discuss what makes a good opening, how to weave a powerful theme into your story, how to make characters interesting, and how all these elements can work together cohesively to create a story that matters.
Catch up on our previous episodes here:
Join our ✨LIVE✨ “After Hours” sessions every Monday here on Substack and Friday on our TikTok page so that YOU can chime in with your thoughts and ask questions about what it’s like to be a creative writer or editor. Come join our mini nerd parties!
📣 Calling All Fiction Writers—We Want Your Story!
***Submissions are closing April 14th, so don’t wait to get your FREE story audit!***
Want to be our next guest on “Let’s Fix Stories”? You’ll get an exclusive, FREE feedback session with OBA’s team of professional editors to give you real feedback and inspire you to get your manuscript ready for publishing.
Whether you’ve got an outline, an unfinished draft, a rough first draft, a stuck draft, are struggling with structure, pacing, character arcs, or just need a fresh perspective, we’re here to help you get unstuck and turn your story into something truly compelling.
💬 Question of the Week
We want to hear from YOU. OBA Nation exists as your community, after all. Let’s get to know each other and share creative perspectives! Our question to you this week based on the topic we’ll discuss next week is:
Do you believe that your art can make a tangible difference in the world?
Hit “reply” or comment to drop your answer. We’ll pick some of your responses to feature in our next newsletter and tag you there!
CAPTAIN’S LOG
4/6/2025
The long haul of spinning our wheels until we gain traction as a startup company is setting in. Life circumstances seem to be attacking all of us at exactly the wrong times, sapping the last dregs of our emotional, mental, and physical energy that we need to put into getting One Brilliant Arc as a company up off the ground. We’ve been running on 60+ hour work weeks, trying to keep what feels like a bajillion plates spinning in harmony between only a few people.
Real talk? We very nearly quit last week. Shut down efforts until we could be in better places. But right when we got discouraged, we started seeing breadcrumbs of encouragement. Traction started to pick up. People reached out and let us know that what we were doing meant something to them. Writers started booking story audits with us.
Ultimately, we had a team meeting and figured out how we could conserve our energy while still keeping up with what has been working. All of us decided where we could push ourselves and where we really needed less pressure so we could focus on the challenges in our personal lives.
I guess it really is true what they say: right when you experience your biggest obstacle is when you’re about to experience your biggest breakthrough.
The key? Don’t give up! Readjust, realign, refocus, but never give up.