New York Times, Friday, January 4, 2019

In the hopes it helps new constructors like myself, I thought I would share my original grid for this puzzle and explain why it was rejected.

First, 41D (TCH) was a puzzle-killer. Using XWord Info, I knew that TCH had never been used in an NYT crossword, whereas its cousin TSK had been used many times. Since I use "Tch!" fairly frequently (as a dismissive noise), I just figured it was waiting for the right time! Will explained that it looks like a string of letters without a clear meaning. So: if you're going to use original short fill, stop and consider whether there's a reason it hasn't been used.

Second, some of the short fill wasn't particularly good: AVAS, LYN, SSA, and SMS (a plural name, an old name, and two S-heavy acronyms). Individually none of these are particularly offensive, but the more you pile up, the worse. The finished product still has some fill I would rather avoid, but I tried to make it more interesting.

Third, the grid design has issues. My inexperience with themeless puzzles shows. Ideally, the lone black squares in the northwest and southeast corners (which split potential 9-letter entries into two 4-letter entries) would be removed. In both versions, I did try many times to remove them, but I was never satisfied with my fill. (Which itself is a lesson; sometimes fill is more important than an ideal grid). The grid also has an excess of 3-letter entries, though that's a trade-off when you seed in 11-letter entries.

Fourth, a personal lesson: ditch your quirks. In the accepted puzzle, I intentionally avoided any two entries meeting at a pluralized "S," as I consider that merge to be an unofficial "cheater" square. Had I let myself ignore that rule that nobody else has to follow, I surely could have improved on the result.

I love getting WARM FUZZIES from a themeless puzzle. That's a fantastic entry, and those beautiful Zs — worked in so smoothly with ZEBRAS and CZAR — a feel-good sensation, indeed.

A couple of other standout features, too: I MEAN, REALLY! and MAY I CUT IN. The latter was especially strong, given such a clever clue. I thought [Line at a dance] had to be line-dance related, or maybe hinting at a conga line.

I also liked that Neil did something more audacious than sticking with a standard 72-word themeless layout. Generally, those tend to have four corners chock full of good stuff, but they can often feel separated from each other. Not today! From BIKINI WAX to MAITRE DS to ARE WE DONE to SEX COMEDY to MAY I CUT IN … note how many long answers run into other long answers, giving the puzzle a wide-open feeling.

My wife, Jill, once expressed an ick factor about BIKINI WAX. That surprised me, but after thinking about what a BIKINI WAX must be like to go through, perhaps it's questionable as to whether it passes the breakfast test.

SEX COMEDY intersecting it gave the puzzle a bit of a raunchy start. Not my thing these days, but I can see the appeal for a different demographic.

A couple of explanations:

• ROTFL = rolling on the floor laughing.
• TWIHARD = a "Twilight" diehard. The term makes me crack up. Hard to believe that people like this crap!

AMYL is a tough dab of crossword glue to swallow, and TPK looks so bizarre (we don't have turnpikes out here in the Pacific Northwest), but thankfully SFC was easier to take (sergeant first class). Prices to pay to have such good solving flow.

Not entirely on my wavelength, but I appreciated how Neil opened up his grid flow and tried to do something different.