My love of theatre lasted through my mission for the LDS Church. Even while I was in São Paulo, Brazil, as a missionary, I wrote a play called Stone Tables about the relationship between Moses and Aaron in the book of Exodus, which had standing-room-only audiences at its premiere (which I didn't attend, since I was still in Brazil!).

At the same time, though, that original impetus to write science fiction persisted.

I had taken fiction writing courses at college, for which I don't think I ever wrote science fiction. But on the side, I had started a series of stories about people with psionic powers (I had no idea this was a sci-fi cliché at the time) that eventually grew into The Worthing Saga. I had even sent one of the stories off to Analog magazine before my mission, and on my mission I wrote several long stories in the same series (as well as a couple of stabs at mainstream stories).

In all that time, the Battle Room remained an idea in the back of my mind. It wasn't until 1975, though, that I dusted it off and tried to write it. By then I had started a theatre company that managed to do reasonably well during the first summer and then collapsed under the weight of bad luck and bad management (myself) during the fall and Winter. I was deeply in debt on the pathetic salary of an editor at BYU Press. Writing was the only thing I knew how to do besides proofreading and editing. It was time to get serious about writing something that might actually earn some money--and, plainly, playwriting wasn't going to be it.

I first rewrote and sent out "Tinker," the first Worthing story I wrote and the one that was still most effective. I got a rejection letter from Ben Bova at Analog, pointing out that "Tinker" simply didn't feel like science fiction--it felt like fantasy. So the Worthing stories were out for the time being.