The Best That I Can

Today, I wrap up the ACBNnual with a look back and a look forward.

Hello once again, friends.

I’ve spent this entire week looking back, revisiting the best things I ate, drank, entertained myself with, and wrote in 2023.

Today, I’m looking forward.

It’s been a transitional year for The Action Cookbook Newsletter.

The degradation of Twitter—my primary promotional outlet and source of traffic over the years—has had a real impact on this newsletter’s growth. It’s been frustrating for me, trying to find new ways to share writing that I genuinely believe is as good as I’ve ever done. At the same time, engagement remains high among existing readers, and I’m thankful for each and every one of you who reads, comments, shares and contributes to making this place happen.

(psst: a subscription to the ACBN makes a great last-minute gift.)

For all my frustrations, I still genuinely love doing this.

That said, I’d be foolish if I kept doing exactly the same things I’ve been doing and expected different results. I have not settled on quite how, but I expect to make some tweaks to my publishing schedule and newsletter formats in the new year.

I want to bring you bigger things.

In yesterday’s recap of the best things I wrote this year, I purposefully omitted a few things because I wanted to talk about them in this light today.

This year, I experimented with publishing some of my longer-form fiction writing. You’ve all placed a lot of trust in me when it comes to what you get in each newsletter, but I’m sure it’s been a surprise on the days where that’s manifested in a 4,000-word short story landing in your inbox on a Wednesday morning.

I’m proud of these stories, and I’ve been greatly encouraged by the response they’ve received. If you haven’t read them yet, I’d love if you spent some time with them over the holidays.

The Lucky Penny

The Special

The Dream-Seller

The Lost City

The Farewell

Not that I don’t still love ripping off silly blog posts, but this is the kind of work that it makes me happiest to bring you. I want to do more of that, even if that means that I might end up publishing a bit less frequently.

To that end—

[flipping through cards like Andrew Lincoln’s creep character in Love Actually]

—just because it’s Christmas—

—(and at Christmas you tell the truth)—

I am writing a book.

I do not have an agent or publisher yet. I do not have a timeline for when you might see it. I really don’t have any details I can share right now other that to admit this out loud. Maybe I’m saying just to put myself on the spot for getting it done? But, there you have it. It’s something I’ve been working on for a long time, and I think I finally have the tools to tell the story I want to tell the way I want to tell it.

Well, that’s a bit of a tease, isn’t it?

I guess it is! Ah, well. Nevertheless.

My ever-present worries about growth and open rates and publishing schedules and such aside, I’m so genuinely grateful to you for giving me this venue to do what I do. For me, writing is a necessity; I can’t imagine how much more annoying I’d be to my loved ones if I didn’t have it as an outlet, and I would still write even if no one ever saw it. To have that writing read by you is a privilege and an honor.

Seriously—thank you.

I have to reflect on the two most important-to-me pieces that I wrote in 2023, both about my beloved dog Holly. The first, written in March after she had a health scare, was an attempt to capture my feelings about her while she was still around.

She's Still Running

Six months later, the same health issues behind that scare became too much for her, and we were forced to say goodbye. I did my best to craft a proper eulogy, to say what she’d meant to me. It was woefully inadequate, but all I could do was the best that I could.

Dog Years

To be able to share both the grief of her passing and the joy of the years we had together was a gift, and the outpouring of sympathy and love from you all was a great source of comfort to me in a difficult time. I’m grateful you gave me that.

This newsletter has never been about one thing.

That’s always been both its biggest weakness and its greatest strength. When pressed for an elevator pitch, a simple-to-digest description of what it is, I’ve got nothing.

Well, it’s about food, but also parenting and sports and silly stuff and… [shrugs]

That’s also been incredibly freeing, though. I can write about whatever I’m thinking and feeling, and the fact that you’ve been willing to keep reading tells me I might just have something to say.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for making all of this possible.

I’ve got big plans for the future, and I hope you’ll be there for them. I’m taking next week off to enjoy the holidays with my family, but I’ll be ready to hit the ground running in 2024.

If you celebrate, may you have a Merry Christmas—and may you all have a restful, happy and safe end to 2023.

I’ll see you in the new year.

—Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)

Getty Images / Carlos Fernandez