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ne The Arts too attached," explains Napolitano. "I have a pretty thick skin. I think it comes from being a writing student in high school and a journalism/English major in college. Everything can always get better, so the less attached you are and the more open you are to other opinions and edits and notes, I think the better your end product will be—especially for my first episode." But even though it's Hollywood, the work isn't always glamorous. "It isn't easy," she adds. "It's fun, [but it's] hard work. You have to be on 100 percent every single day, for sure. You always want to be contributing concise, helpful ideas to drive the story forward." In order for Napolitano to successfully create scenes about hospital drama and detailed surgeries, she had to overcome a major obstacle of her own—lifelong phobia of doctors, needles, and hospitals. The fear is understandable. At age two, she was diagnosed with stage four neuroblastoma, a rare type of childhood cancer. "All of the kids who had been diagnosed [with the same disease] before me, who followed this specific treatment protocol, had died," she explains. "It definitely shaped my whole life. Throughout my childhood, I had to go through follow-up visits to track my health progress and see if there would be any relapses. So I grew up hating doctors and even the smell of soap in hospitals." Although she did always love watching Grey's Anatomy, she had to fast forward or close her eyes during the surgeries. She worked hard to overcome her fear. As a result, her career and life paths are punctuated with high points. One such high point occurred a few days before her first episode was to air. Her boyfriend had invited her out to dinner and, as a surprise, brought her to the Soho House in West Hollywood—a trendy club with a private screening room. He had obtained a copy of her episode and invited 30 of her friends to watch it. It was the first time she saw the "final air" version with its finishing touches, such as color correction and music. "It was very fun to watch," enthuses Napolitano. "I got to [watch] it in a room full of people who had never seen it before, so it was funny to see what got a laugh, what got a gasp, how people reacted to it. It was really great to enjoy it with TV viewers for the first time. It was exactly how I would have wanted the night to be." The TV screening wasn't the only excitement of the night. After the show, her boyfriend called her to the front of the room and, in front of all her friends, asked her to marry him. She said yes. If Napolitano were writing a script for her path to becomn ing an ABC writer, she would probably not revise it at all. ● Napolitano's second episode aired on October 3, 2013. 182 NBKJ Dec13 Tia.indd 182 10/25/13 2:14 PM

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