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Last week when I interviewed Mario Cantone, he said people are always surprised about some aspect of his career: People who know him from Broadway ask, "You do stand-up?," while people who know him from comedy clubs ask, "You act?" And then there's a mixture of both groups who ask "You sing?" It's very similar to what happens to me, but, unfortunately, people ask me, "You act?," after seeing me in an actual play. Rude. Regardless, my pit musician friends don't know about my performing career, and a lot of my radio listeners don't know I played the piano on Broadway for years. And then there's the crossover group who don't know I've written some books. So, since "My Awesome/Awful Popularity Plan" (my first young adult novel!) is being released this week, I thought I'd give a little back-story on my writing.

My first big writing attempt was a play I wrote in fourth grade called Killer Girlfriend. I'm not saying I was already heavily influenced by Broadway, but the so-called killer girlfriend's name was "Miss Mazeppa." Nothing came of the play even though I had ample copies of it due to the fact that I was able to use my father's rexograph machine (anybody around from the '70s?). Cut to the year 2000. I was in a bookstore and saw a novel a copy of "The Nanny Diaries" on the shelf. I thought that if people were interested in the inside world of nannying, then there would also be people interested in the inside world of Broadway! That night, I started writing my first novel, originally called "Subbing." I decided to write about a Jewish piano player on Broadway who worked as a sub ("write what you know," people!). After each chapter, I would send it to various friends for feedback, especially my college best friend Tim Cross, my Disaster! co-writer and best friend Jack Plotnick and currently starring as the Nun in Disaster! (and Yale alum and beltress) Anika Larsen. Then I started bringing it to the theatres where I was playing in the pit. During The Full Monty, I would haul it up to Andrea Burns' dressing room, as well as giving it to various fellow pit musicians so they could be distracted and miss cues. I decided to contact Charles Busch's partner, Eric Myers, because he and I were friendly through Charles and I knew he was a book agent. He read the first chapter and was crazily enthusiastic. He told me that comic novels were very rare and that I wrote exactly as I spoke and that could be a big plus. He kept on me to finish the book and I finally did by doing most of my writing after I came home from playing a Broadway show (aka 11 PM).

	Seth and Andrea Burns at a recent book release event for "My Awesome/Awful Popularity Plan"

Regardless, after years of rejection, a new editor (Joe Pittman) took over at one of the publishing houses that rejected me (Alyson). After the reading the first three chapters, Joe asked to read the rest of the book. I then got the delicious call from Eric I'd been waiting for: "How you would like to get your book published?" Yay! It was so thrilling. First, Joe made me change the title to "Broadway Nights." Then came the part I hate: re-writing. I completely dreaded it. But, Joe gave me great notes and after forcing myself to start, I wound up being super happy with the result. And, to all the publishing houses that rejected me, my first novel is now in its fourth printing! Ha! Of course, each printing is probably 20 books, but brava nonetheless. P.S., Alyson went out of business and now Vantage Point has taken over the publishing. It has a fancy new cover and a new intro by Audra McDonald. Sass! Get a delish autographed copy here.