On the Slow Train to Eureka
Taking our time in the process with Roberta Kwok
“There’s the messy reality that intrudes after the grand ideas.”—Roberta Kwok, author of Lost in Curiosity
Preview: Emerging Form Episode 169 with Roberta Kwok
“There are months or years of mistakes and failures and doubt and uncertainty that precede the discovery,” says science writer Roberta Kwok. How do we make our way through the messy middle? How do we struggle through the realm of the unknown to the other side? In this episode of Emerging Form, we join Roberta in a discussion about the gap between the great idea and its execution—a concept equally relevant for scientists, novelists and poets. If this episode had abstract sponsors, they would be dedication, perseverance and commitment. We talk about failure, doubt, patience, untold stories and process. We also talk about the drive to be eloquent, our relationship to a reader, the role of humility and hope, our fear of failure, just how important the mess really is to a creative practice, and why a spreadsheet can be a writer’s best friend.
Roberta Kwok is a science writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, NewYorker.com, Nature, New Scientist, Audubon, and other publications. She has received a fellowship from the Knight Science Journalism Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union. Before becoming a journalist, Kwok worked in a genetics lab at Stanford University. She lives in the Seattle area and is originally from Canada. Her new book is LOST IN CURIOSITY: Field Notes From Scientists’ Adventures into the Unknown.
What We’re Reading and Listening to:
Rosemerry:
Need three minutes of glorious serenity? My friend John recently sent me this video by VOCES8, one of my favorite acapella groups, which has had a big shift in voices—strange and lovely how it is so different and so the same. This poem, “Quiet,” by Sara Teasdale, was arranged just for them.
Her voice is like clear water
that drips upon a stone
in forests far and silent
where Quiet plays alone.
Her thoughts are like the lotus,
a-bloom by sacred streams
beneath the temple arches
where Quiet sits and dreams.
Her kisses are the roses
that glow while dusk is deep
in Persian gardens closes
where Quiet falls asleep.For a small, instantaneous jolt of beauty, I recommend the Words by Winter podcast by writer Alison McGhee. I have long loved her writing but didn’t know she was doing a podcast in which she reads a poem and talks about it a bit … they’re all around 5-8 minutes, such a gorgeous invitation to step into a new lens for the day. Anywhere you listen to podcasts, but here it is on Apple.
Christie:
I’ve already raved here about Jeff Hiller’s fabulous memoir, Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success, and Hiller’s recent interview with Anna Sale on Slate’s Death, Sex & Money is a a wonderful follow up. In the interview, Hiller talks about what it was like to win an Emmy for his role on the HBO show Somebody Somewhere and what it’s like to be beloved by superfans and yet still a total unknown to much of the world.
I’m just finishing a couple of fabulous books that I will rave about next time, stay tuned!
Letter to an Unnamed Star
How could you prepare yourself
for the pressure of the wishes?
How to prepare for the burden
when any given person on earth
might choose, at last, out of desperation
most likely, to look up and notice you shining
in the great vast dark and pin on you
their greatest hope grown like a weed
from the seeds of their greatest fear?
You, formed from a cloud unimaginably cold,
were never prepared to receive such longing,
such ache, such stubborn, relentless faith.
The fact we can see you at all means
you survived a battle in which gravity
wins. What do you have to teach us
of wishes? Perhaps the wisdom of falling
in on ourselves, faster and faster;
how we must give away enormous energy
in order to stabilize our core. You model
how we must give ourselves to a process
of becoming. Are you fighting for it?
I imagine you might ask, as you, too,
battle against pressure and what’s happening
in the field beyond your control.
Have you learned yet to power yourself?
you might ask as you spontaneously fuse
hydrogen atoms to form helium. And somewhere
in the midst of the forty million years
of becoming a star, you might ask of us wishers,
Have you learned yet anything of patience,
how much brightness it can bring?
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, from The Wonderment (forthcoming, Wildhouse Publishing, 2026)
A Note About Paid Subscriptions:
First, we want to thank ALL our subscribers! We are so grateful you join us in this conversation about what it is to engage with yourself, the world and others in a creative way. And a BIG thank you to our paid subscribers. You make this podcast possible. Only our paid subscribers receive our bonus episodes as a thank you for their financial support. This week, we talk with Roberta about how she wrested with the strongest, most controversial opening paragraph for a book we’ve ever read. We also discuss the power of great scaffolding when carrying out an artistic plan, how teaching can be an essential part of the midpoint of a creative career, why the “eureka moment” isn’t the be-all-end-all in creative process, and using fun as a barometer for success–fun, and, um, spreadsheets.
Two Questions:
(share your answers with us here on Substack or in our FB group)
What frequently offered bit of advice about creative practice simply does not work for you?
If someone looked behind the curtains of your creative process, what would they see?