All story images by Jennifer Berney

As a teenager in the mid-90s, the way I spent my summers will be recognizable to almost any Gen-Xer: I talked on the family phone (a landline) for hours; I went to rock shows; smoked pot in cemeteries; and scribbled poetry in a composition notebook.

I made a daily practice of the latter activity, staring at the walls of my attic bedroom until words found me, then recording them. There was little distraction other than a view of the neighbor’s tree outside my window, and the posters that had lined my wall for years.

As a middle-aged adult, my laptop (which long ago replaced pen and paper as my primary writing tool) has become intrinsically tied not just to creativity but to work, household management, and a world of addictive content. Because I rely on it for all areas of my life—grading papers, paying bills, keeping up with my children’s schoolwork—it feels like an extension of me, not a portal for escape like the notebooks of my teenage years.

Earlier this year, I encountered Tim Redmond’s story for Craftsmanship, “The Perfect Pen,” which chronicles the long life and utility of a fountain pen, and I began to fantasize about writing drafts longhand with my own special pen. Research shows that handwriting may encourage connectivity between different regions of the brain, enhancing learning and memory.

Inspired, I bought a refillable ballpoint from my local art supply store and began to free-write by hand for 20 minutes as a first step for every draft. Every time I sat down to write with it, I would have a specific topic or scene in mind. But within five minutes, the motion of pen across paper brought forth unexpected connections and memories.

When I was young, my grandmother, Vera Gault, a historian and newspaper columnist, mailed a personal, typewritten letter to my family every Thursday. I recall being entranced by her typed words, more careful and legible than the cursive I was used to, and yet more intimate than the pages of laser-printed, Times New Roman font I’d see so much of in later years. I wanted to play with that same magic.

And so, I expanded this experiment in “slow writing” by purchasing a manual typewriter—a tool that allows no instant deletion of words, no rearranging of sentences with a quick cut-and-paste.

As I documented in a previous story for Craftsmanship, I visited the Bremerton Typewriter Company, tried out dozens of manual typewriters, and settled on an Olympia SM5. Once the typewriter arrived, I began to make a conscious effort to leave my laptop behind when I enter my workspace. Rather than “warming up” to the task of writing with digital scrolling, I blast music, sketch, and play around with art supplies. As I draw, words start to find me. I then pause the music, feed an index card into the Olympia, and type.

The strength and dexterity required to move the keys slow down my racing brain. I type until the words stop, and then I’ve made something—not a complete story or an essay (yet), but thanks to the typewriter, I’ve converted a thought into a satisfyingly physical object—so different from the scattered ideas that live in the Notes app on my phone.

As I move between drawing and music and typing, I feel energized and focused, like a mad scientist in a lab, or a witch casting spells. This, I realize, is what I’ve been chasing. After years of sitting at my laptop, constantly switching between emails and drafts, research tabs and social media feeds, I didn’t recognize how much digital culture was derailing me, until I took some concrete steps to mitigate it—and those steps had more to do with adding analog tools than forcing digital abstinence.

My return to analog tools has changed my relationship to the craft of writing—rekindling my appreciation for the physical page, and the alchemy of turning fleeting, invisible thoughts into tangible words on paper. I find joy in the process; I feel less pressure to arrive quickly at the finished product. In a time when writers—and all creative professionals—are warned to either leverage technology or be replaced by it, this feels like a small act of resistance.