How I Wrote The World Perceived

I faced a daunting task that late November afternoon when I began work on
the book that would become The World Perceived. How does one say what
one thinks? I had it all put together in my head, my mind was able to corre-
late and integrate all of the information I had gathered over the years, but
how do I put that on paper for someone to read? My mind can instantaneous-
ly search out and put together the concepts I’ve formed, which are an inte-
gration of (and hopefully a furthering of) all that I’ve read previously. But the
reader of a book can’t remember the concept I read about ten years ago, or
how that concept relates to another concept I’d learned about from a book
which I’d read before that. If I want someone to know these things I will have
to spell them out; literally. Because that’s what writing is.

I had adopted very basic theological and philosophical idea, which I’d formu-
lated over the years, now I needed to put that idea down on paper. I don’t
remember now exactly what I began to write, that late November afternoon
when the writing officially began, but I do remember beginning to write
down my thoughts—about practically everything theological and philosophi-
cal—with a pen on a pad of paper. Writing my thoughts about something in
particular was not new to me, but writing my thoughts about everything in
general, with the goal of somehow organizing these writings into something
coherent, like a well written book, was a completely new thing for me. I
wasn’t sure how I would do it but I thought I would able to.

I’ve heard it said that the fully accomplished reader is someone who, having
enjoyed reading many books over the years, becomes the writer of a book
that others can enjoy reading. It’s certainly true that good readers make bet-
ter writers, and it’s also true that the great books, which have been written
over the centuries, make for a great conversation of which we, as the readers,
are a part. And it’s up to us to further this conversation by adding our own
written contributions to it. I’ve also heard it said that, concerning non-fiction
books, one should refrain from writing a book before their fortieth birthday;
because one will probably write something that one will later regret. As I was
over forty years of age when I began writing The World Perceived, I figured I
was on relatively safe ground here.

Basically, how I wrote The Word Perceived can be seen in the outline of the
book. The book is broken down into three sections: how we think about the
world (chapters one and two), how we perceive the world (chapters two and
three), and how we live in the world (chapters four, five and six). This allows
the readers to follow my own progression toward the concepts expressed in
the book and it also allows the readers to make their own progression to-
ward these concepts. In short, to properly understand the last three chapters
of my book (the concepts) one must read the three chapters that precede
them (an examination of our presuppositions).

My favorite part of the book The World Perceived is in Chapter Three: the
geocentric versus the heliocentric conception of the universe. This, more
than anything else, was the inspiration for the book. The Copernican Revolu-
tion was the biggest black eye modern science has ever given the Church and
the Bible. And the skeptics, atheists, and antitheists are forever reminding
Christians of that bruising, which occurred over five hundred years ago, yet
the Copernican Revolution also raises a lot of questions concerning percep-
tion, which have been overlooked. The Bible says the sun moves across the
sky, which it appears to do, but modern science has proven that it doesn’t.
But the sun does appear to be moving. So is the Bible wrong in its description
of the world? Is modern science correct? Even more importantly, what dif-
ference does it make? This one example—the geocentric versus the heliocen-
tric conception of the universe—is probably the best working example of the
differences between scientific and religious presuppositions, perceptions,
and attitudes toward the world.

Chapter Three of The World Perceived, which is also the longest chapter of
the book, contains three practical examples of conflicting religious and scien-
tific views of the world, and illustrates for the readers how our thinking
about the world affects our perception of the world; something many people
don’t even realize. These examples allow the reader to see—in action—our
thinking about the world affecting our perception of the world. For example,
the creation versus evolution controversy is really a controversy over pre-
suppositions, not (supposedly neutral) scientific facts.

The theological portion of the book, which was easiest for me to write, is
found in the last three chapters. The first three chapters were the most diffi-
cult for me to write because I needed to simplify my own intellectual pro-
gression toward the concepts I’d formed in such a way that the readers could
follow my thinking. This entailed explaining things I’d taken for granted and
not really given much thought to actually expressing, but by writing them out
I also gained new insights and I was able to understand my own thinking bet-
ter. After a year of writing The World Perceived in spiral notebooks, I sat
down with my new laptop (with the blank screen in Word 2007) and began
the book anew, using the spiral notebooks as a very rough draft of the book.
This is how the real work of writing and putting together the book began,
and it was a lot of work doing so. As I said, writing always entails rewriting,
and rewriting’s a lot of work too. But it always pays to rewrite. One’s first
draft is always a diamond in the rough no matter how great a writer one
might think oneself to be.

After my first year of writing the book on a computer, I printed out a manu-
script of the book to read, and it was terrible. After what was now two years
of writing, the book seemed almost unreadable to me. Back to work rewriting
the book. After another year went by I had produce what I believed to be a
publishable manuscript. I had gotten involved with Amazon’s CreateSpace by
this point, so I uploaded my book interior and cover files and ordered a proof
copy of the book. The proof needed a lot of work, so it was back to rewriting
for me. Another proof was ordered, read, corrected, the book completely re-
written and the cover redesigned. Another proof was ordered, read, cor-
rected, and the book rewritten yet again. But I was happy with this version of
the book. In fact, much like I knew I had finished writing my very first draft in
the spiral notebooks, I knew this was my final rewrite. I had done all I could
do: imperfect, but what isn’t? I realigned the book’s cover for the last time,
uploaded the files, ordered the proof, approved it, and submitted it to that
great conversation, which I spoke of earlier.

In short, how I wrote this book was the hard way. I hope my next book is
much easier to write. It should be, but it’ll probably take me ten years to
write it. For a writer’s first book, I think The World Perceived is pretty in-
tense, because I’ve put so much work into it. For twenty dollars, I think the
readers certainly get their money’s worth out of it. And I never intended to
make any money from writing this book either. It was something I had to
write and I’m happy if anyone enjoys reading it. That’s the greatest reward of
writing. That and being able to influence people’s thinking!

**NOTE**

This post is subject to my editorial revisions

A.J. MacDonald, Jr.