Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen, and the Greatest Race Ever Run

In 1989, the two biggest long-distance triathletes in the world met head to head at the Hawaii Ironman—the most prestigious triathlon in the world. Dave Scott had already won this race six times. Mark Allen had dominated everywhere except Kona; although he had gone up against Dave Scott at the Hawaii Ironman four times, he had never been able to win. In the 1989 race, called the Iron War ever since, they raced within metres of each other for eight hours, building a five-kilometre lead on the rest of the field, with neither able to break away. The winner broke the course record by nineteen minutes.

How did these two athletes put on such outstanding performances? Are they aerobic mutants? Were they driven by ferocious inner demons? Matt Fitzgerald explores the science of exercise capacity and finds that it is an athlete’s mental gifts that make the difference. It seems that people stop exercising when the mental strain of persisting in the face of perceived effort—suffering—is too great, and that a specific part of the brain (the part that handles response inhibition and conflict resolution) is involved in exercise endurance. But even the most accomplished sufferers needs a perceived rewards to motivate them. Fitzgerald digs into Mark Allen’s and Dave Scott’s respective pasts to explore what makes them tick and why they found what they were looking for in triathlon.

Supposedly the idea of combining a 3.8-kilometre swim, 180-kilometre bike ride, and 42-kilometre run (a full marathon) arose from a recurring argument about who was fittest: swimmers, cyclists, or runners. Whoever finishes first, we’ll call him the iron man. This book is as much a celebration of the peculiar sport of long-distance triathlon as it is about Dave Scott and Mark Allen. Triathletes will enjoy reading about the people who took the fledgling sport and pushed it farther than anyone had imagined. Fans of sport stories will discover a strange new world.

If fatigue is caused by a mere perception why can’t athletes simply override it by an act of will? This objection reflects a common misunderstanding about the nature of mental phenomena. Intuitively, most people regard perceptions as nonphysical and therefore as lacking the power to exert deterministic control over physical functions. But perceptions are physical—they are specific patterns of electrical and chemical activity in the brain—and they have as much causal power as a punch to the gut.

While there are zillions of stories about not quitting, few tellers of such tales ever really explore the source of the will to endure, the substance of trying harder. Most raconteurs of sport just take it as given that any seer or hearer of a story of outrageous persistence can be inspired to try harder . . . Modern science has enabled us to put this kind of courage under the microscope as never before, and the results have not been kind to the myth of the communicability of will. Scientists . . . have demonstrated that the bravery of the likes of Dave Scott and Mark Allen is a physical thing subject to physical laws and cannot be freely chosen by just anyone.

Further reading

• Joe Friel on exercise fatigue
• Matt Fitzgerald’s earlier Complete Triathlon Book has an excellent chapter on mental training

Reviewed from my own copy of the book.

Molotov Hearts by Chris Eng

Trying on a pair of pants isn’t a subversive act, is it? For a teenage girl who sees another world—a world of friendship, authentic self-expression, freedom, ideas, and great music—in a group of punks who hang out downtown, the first step to changing her life is buying a pair of jeans. Jenn manages to find new friends and an escape from her home life, but her escape is based on deception, and eventually it can’t continue. How can Jenn escape her controlling mother and take control of her life?

This book is very much about identity, and the importance of finding a way to be yourself. The book has a lot of heart. It’s about the importance of taking action to change your life, but it acknowledges the power of a generous act by a stranger. In the end, Jenn manages to finds a way to solve her problems herself in a way that doesn’t match violence with violence. Although a romance acts as the catalyst for Jenn’s transformation, there’s no message here that love fixes everything. In fact, the boyfriend is almost an innocent bystander while it’s the women who really make things happen. Love may or may not happen, but you have to fix yourself first.

Part of the reason this book speaks to me is because I know the author. Chris and I went to the same high school in Victoria, BC, and the physical and psychological setting of the story is vivid in my mind. However, even if you’re not a Victoria native, I can recommend this story about identity, love, and the power of punk.

Molotov Hearts is available from Powell’s Books or Amazon. Buy the PDF at Chris’s webstore, or read it for free at HoodieRipper.com. Check out Chris’s new series, Switchblade Queens.

Reviewed from my own (paper) copy of the book.

Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers by Scott Norton

In developmental editing, an editor works with an author to shape the structure and content of a manuscript. This can start early in the writing process, or it might begin once a draft of the manuscript is finished. Developmental editing is done more often with non-fiction books, where the emphasis is on the author’s subject matter expertise rather than writing expertise, and it is generally done to improve the book’s quality and effectiveness at reaching its target readership.

I think developmental editing is the most difficult, although potentially the most rewarding, form of editing. It takes insight and creativity to find a theme or a narrative thread that will make the facts come alive. And it takes the greatest tact and communication with the author.

Contents

1. Concept: Shaping the proposal
2. Content: Assessing potential
3. Thesis: Finding the hook
4. Narrative: Tailoring the timeline
5. Exposition: Deploying the argument
6. Plan: Drafting a blueprint
7. Rhythm: Setting the pace
8. Transitions: Filling in the blanks
9. Style: Training the voice
10. Display: Dressing up the text

Scott Norton takes a lot of the guesswork out of this process by breaking it into separate tasks (see the contents listed in the sidebar). Each chapter has a case history to demonstrate the techniques being discussed. Structure is a constant theme, and the case studies typically use the initial and revised table of contents as a starting point for the editing. There’s valuable discussion on deciding how to approach the material, how to present it, what aspects to emphasize, and whether to order material according to a timeline or by following an argument.

The detailed case histories make the book come alive. Each case history is developed as the chapter progresses, and it shows the table of contents of a manuscript before and after editing, which neatly summarizes the changes. Although the author-editor relationship doesn’t get a chapter of its own, the case histories illustrate a variety of ways this can go.

At a little over 200 pages, the book isn’t unmanageably long, and it’s an attractively published small paperback that you can keep as a reference book without breaking your bookshelf. The further reading section at the end is a thoughtful collection of other good books on related topics with a short description of what each book offers.

Related reading

This article by John McPhee on structure discusses the choice between chronology and theme and describes how stuck a writer can get without a framework.

Reviewed from my own copy of the book.

Insurance for freelance editors: WorkSafeBC

Keep your home office ergonomic.
Photo by Janet 59. Some rights reserved.

As a freelancer, you may be without a safety net if you lose your ability to work—especially if you don’t have a spouse with employee benefits. Well, here’s a start: in BC, you can opt for voluntary WorkSafeBC coverage. Yes, editing is a very safe job, but there’s still a risk of developing repetitive strain injuries, or neck and back problems.

Personal optional protection

WorkSafeBC offers personal optional protection for self-employed people. This will cover your lost income and pay your medical expenses if you are injured in your work. You can apply to cover from $1,500 to $6,492 of monthly gross salary, and because of the low workplace risk for editors, coverage is not expensive. Editors fall into rate class 762043: Writing, Publishing, or Map Production (no printing). The rate for this classification is $.16 per $100 of coverage (for 2021), so to cover a gross salary of $2,500 per month, the annual premium will be $48.

Incorporated businesses

You can’t apply for coverage if your business is incorporated; only the owners of proprietorships and partnerships are eligible (see item 12 on the application form).

Limitation of legal action

If you opt for WorkSafeBC coverage, you might be limiting your right to sue your client if you are injured on the job (see item 11 on the application form). This is the basic term of the “compensation bargain” behind mandatory worker coverage programs. The positive side is that some clients prefer to deal with contractors who have WCB insurance.

How to register

You can apply for personal optional protection online. There’s also a registration form you can fill out and send in.

Further reading

• WorkSafeBC classification and rate search page
• Wikipedia: Workers’ compensation
• Workers Compensation Act

The Elements of Expression: Putting Thoughts into Words by Arthur Plotnik

There’s an expression in Dutch: Doe maar gewoon, dan doe je al gek genoeg. It translates approximately as, “Why don’t you just act normal? That’s already strange enough.” And how right the Dutch are: rhetorical flourishes, weak jokes, arty effects, obscure language, and the breezy style that Strunk and White warned against are all reasons to toss a book over your shoulder. But, taken too much to heart, won’t this keep-it-normal philosophy result in Soviet-cell-block-grey writing? The literary equivalent of overcooked cabbage and brown rice without salt may not get thrown across the room, but it will end up gathering dust under the bed.

Somewhere between these two extremes is writing that catches attention without bolting on superfluous ornaments. The Elements of Expression tells you how to use concrete images and unfamiliar combinations of words to produce writing that is fresh and expressive and brings delight to the reader. Arthur Plotnik provides techniques for injecting force and power into your writing, and suggests a variety of places, from rap music to Shakespeare, to find new language. Most importantly, he tells you how to make this new language your own.

Don’t waste time finding your single real voice. We rarely find our real voice . . . Our voice can be a new voice—or several—that we make real, a voice in harmony with our roots but capable of expressing the full flower of the evolving self. Like everything that breaks from the ordinary, the new voice entails risks, apprehensions, missteps. These are reasonable costs of liberation.

I expected this to be a book about writing, so the chapter on oral presentation was a delightful added bonus. We’ve all been tortured by the People Who Should Be Banned from Presenting (the flaunters of their unpreparedness: “Prepare? Do gods prepare?”). In keeping with the theme of adding expressiveness, Plotnik pleads for effective voice modulation. In the past, the baby-talk sound of the kindergarten teacher who traversed an entire octave in one word and the android-like delivery of newscasters made me think that the best modulation is the one that nobody notices (“just act normal . . .”), but when you’re a small figure on a distant stage, the audience needs more animation than you would use when speaking face to face. Plotnik tells you how to use volume, tempo, and phrasing to make your presentation sing. He finishes with his own checklist of methods for reducing the terror of public speaking (bring a marked text and an extra copy).

As always, Plotnik is a joy to read. He shares his secrets generously, and he empathizes with the yearning for effective expression that all writers, however casual, feel.

Other books by Arthur Plotnik

Better than Great: A Plenitudinous Compendium of Wallopingly Fresh Superlatives (review)
Spunk & Bite: A Writer’s Guide to Punchier, More Engaging Language & Style (review)
Elements of Editing: A Modern Guide for Editors & Journalists
The Elements of Authorship (review)

Reviewed from my own copy of the book.