In her debut novel, "Half His Age," Jennette McCurdy explores rage, desire, and self-discovery. We sat down with Jennette to learn about her creative journey and finding her voice.

When I received an advance proof copy of Half His Age I planned to read it slowly, over winter break, maybe a few chapters here and there. By the second day I found myself two-thirds of the way through the novel, unable to stop turning the pages. Written with an unrelenting energy, Half His Age (available now) marks a new chapter for Jennette McCurdy.After making waves in 2022 with her memoir Iโ€™m Glad My Mom Died, which became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, Jennette is now stepping into fiction. I sat down with her to talk about her journey into writing, finding her voice, and bringing her debut novel to life.Note: This is a spoiler-free interview and has been edited for length and clarity.

BuzzFeed: Half His Age is your debut novel, but in 2022, you published your memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died. What was your reaction to seeing the impact your memoir had?Jennette McCurdy: I never imagined that I'd have the success that I do now, and I'm so grateful for it. I'm so grateful to have such a loyal readership. This has exceeded any of my wildest expectations.I quit acting at 24 and immediately started writing. I wrote for a good five years before any of my work found the light of day. I wrote plays, teleplays, screenplays, short films, and short stories โ€” so I knew that I wanted to write. I remember days when I would be just crying, thinking, "If I could just have one paycheck where I'm a writer, then I would know that I actually have a future here."It was really a scary time, not knowing where things would land or whether I could make a living from writing or support myself. Ultimately, my body knew that I had to at least try.How long did Half His Age take to finish, from concept to completion?I had the initial idea of Waldo and the fact that she's in a relationship with her writing teacher, Mr. Korgy, when I was 24 on a solo trip to Japan. I was on a Shinkansen, a bullet train, and then the idea didn't come back around for years. It was a two-year process by the time it came back around, and then finishing it nearly 20 drafts later.Some writers only go through one draft, and I think that just speaks to completely different processes. My friend Beth Raymer has a recent book called Fireworks Every Night. It's amazing, and I highly recommend it. She actually worked in one single draft, but she said that she'll sit there and she'll go back and forth on each sentence as she goes. We're taking the same amount of time, but she's taking that time all throughout the first draft.In my process, I feel like I have to go back. In those early drafts, I don't allow the inner critic part of my brain, because I would just never write a thing. I have to just get it out of my system and call them the "vomit drafts." Then after that, I sit with it, and I go, "Holy shit. This needs a lot of work." I just do that again, and again until I look at it and I don't say, "Holy shit." Then I know it's ready.

One thing that struck me immediately while reading Half His Age was the name Waldo. It's a unique name. Was there a specific reason that you chose the name Waldo for the main character?I wish I had something deeper to say about this, but she was always Waldo. She was who she always was. There was a point when I was thinking, should I change her name? But then I was like, absolutely not. She's Waldo, and Korgy was always Korgy, too. Lots of other characters' names shifted โ€” I think Frannie may have been Christina at one point.

In Half His Age, Mr. Korgy mentions that Waldo has a very distinct voice in her writing. What was it like developing your own writing voice?I would say that in my 20s, I was writing all these projects, and that's when I was really finding my voice. None of the stuff that I wrote in my early and mid-20s will ever see the light of day, and we're all better for that (laughs). Those were the years when I was finding my voice, and it was important that I was writing things that were not seen by anybody else.Who are some writers that influenced you?When I sat down with the publisher to talk about this book, they asked that as well, and the first person that I said was Tom Perrotta [author of The Leftovers]. He actually blurbed Half His Age, which was the most amazing full-circle moment for me. I still can't believe it. He's been a great influence.

Also, Ottessa Moshfegh has been a real influence. I would say those two are at the top. There are some others, like Charles Bukowski. I really appreciate his sort of blunt, simple phrasing and sentence structure.What did a typical "day in the life" look like as you wrote Half His Age?For the first year, I was working solely on Half His Age โ€” that was really important to give it all of me. That was my routine: wake up, make coffee, brush my teeth, change, and then just get into it. A key habit for me during the beginning of the writing process is not checking my phone until the end of the writing day. I've changed my phone number multiple times while writing this book because I didn't want any distractions.I used to do word goals every day, but I found that my writing wouldn't be as strong. Sometimes the goal shifts. Are you trying to write 1500 words? Or are you trying to write 500 good words? One of these things is better than the other. I just wrote every day, whatever I could give it.For the second year, I was working on this and another project. My days were much longer at that point. That was 2025, and it was really writing until two in the morning for much of the year. Half His Age was the project that I would work on first during the day, and then I would switch to the other one.As you worked through the drafts, were there parts of Waldo's story that shifted in a way you weren't expecting?I used to cringe when authors would say, "I wanted the character to make one choice, and she wanted to make another" โ€” and now here I am about to say it myself. There were certain decisions that I predicted Waldo would make, and then I would get to that piece of the story, and she clearly wanted to make another choice.Sometimes I'd even write it the way that I thought was best. Then, as I'm reading it, I'm thinking, "Okay, that completely does not track for her emotionally; it's got to be the thing that she actually wants to do." I would say it was more so the middle that changed a lot, and then the first 50 pages were also quite the puzzle. There was a lot of moving and shifting of chapters.But the ending was something that I kind of knew where Waldo landed. I do find that very, very helpful to the writing process.

What are some overarching themes you wanted to explore in this novel?Female rage was a huge one. I had a lot of unprocessed rage that I felt it was time to explore. Other themes are power, desire, and consumerism, specifically, the shame and inadequacy that guide our decision-making as consumers. Those were really the key themes.The biggest theme is female rage and exploring its value. In so much of the book, Waldo is really enraged, but she's suppressing that and not actually facing that rage. I think there's a conversation to be had around that.Primarily, the readers are going to be much older than Waldo, right? We've all been that 17-year-old. We've all been there, suppressing our rage, and hopefully, we're at a place now where we're able to confront it a bit more and explore it a bit more thoroughly. I really hope the book starts conversations around that.Finally, how does it feel to release your debut novel to the world? What do you hope readers will take away?I'm very excited! I hope that readers are able to view their past selves with a bit more compassion. I do think there's so much to learn from our past selves and being where we are now. We're able to process things in a way that we weren't then capable of.Thank you, Jennette; I loved geeking out about writing with you!Do not miss Jennette's debut novel, Half His Age, available now. Keep up with Jennette on her Instagram, @jennettemccurdy.