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By the tiy was for someone as impatient as me, I was already immersed in my real career At the tiht I was in theatre because I loved perfor Giveas I can, on any subject But I'ood actor, and theatre was not to beplays Directing the on makeup for them

And, above all, rewriting those lousy scripts I kept thinking, Why couldn't the playwright hear how dull that speech was? This scene could so easily be punched up and made far more effective

Then I triedadaptations of novels for a reader's theatre class, and ht

People came to my plays and clapped at the end I learned--from actors and from audiences--how to shape a scene, how to build tension, and--above all--the necessity of being harsh with your ownthat doesn't work I learned to separate the story fro that any storyteller has to learn--that there are a thousand right ways to tell a story, and tenones, and you're a lot more likely to find one of the latter than the forh the tale

My love of theatre lasted through my mission for the LDS Church Even while I was in Sao 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 sainal 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 cliche at the tia I had even sent one of the stories off to Analog azine beforestories 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 h, that I dusted it off and tried to write it By then I had started a theatre co the first suht of bad luck and badthe fall and winter I was deeply in debt on the pathetic salary of an editor at BYU Press Writing was the only thing I kne to do besides proofreading and editing It was tiht actually earn so to be it

I first rewrote and sent out "Tinker," the first Worthing story I wrote and the one that was still ot a rejection letter fro out that "Tinker" simply didn't feel like science fiction--it felt like fantasy So the Worthing stories were out for the ti

What was left? That old Battle Roo day that a friend ofher boss's children to the circus in Salt Lake City; would I like to co? I would And since there was no ticket for me (and I've always detested the circus anyway--the clowns drive me up a wall), I spent the hours of the performance out on the lawn of the Salt Palace with a notebook on"Ender's Gahand on narrow-ruled paper "Reate is down"

Maybe it was because of the children in the car on the way up that I decided that the trainees in the Battle Roo Maybe it was because I, barely an adolescent h to write about it Orthat impressed me in Catton's Army of the Potomac: that the soldiers were

all so young and innocent That they shot and bayoneted the eneround between arh it was a deadly ga and fear were terrible and real, it was still a gaa water-filled squirt bottles at each other

"Ender's Ga story because / cared about it and believed in it I had no idea that it would have the effect it had on the science fiction audience While nored it, of course, and continue to live full and happy lives without reading it or anything else by roup who responded to the story with some fervency

Ignored on the Nebula ballot, "Ender's Gao ballot and came in second More to the point, I arded the John W Campbell Award for best neriter Without doubt, "Ender's Ga pad of my career

The sath--the book, now slightly revised, that you are holding in your hands At that point I thought of Ender's Ga only to set up the ht) story of Speaker for the Dead But when I finished the novel, I knew that the story had new strength I had learned a great deal, both about life and about writing, in the decade since I wrote the novelet, and it caain the audience was kind to n translations, and strong, steady sales that, for the first time in my career, actually earned out my advance and allowed me to receive royalties