New York Times, Wednesday, December 23, 2020

I always enjoyed crosswords, but I really got into solving when I became a parent. Puzzles are easy to pick up and put down between the constant interruptions (and intermittent joys) of childcare. When my youngest was two, I decided to take a crack at constructing.

I probably should have found a mentor and researched crossword venues, but why do things the easy way? Instead, I just sent every puzzle I made to Will Shortz. As the rejection emails rolled in, the detailed feedback from NYT editors helped me understand what I was doing wrong and, occasionally, right.

Eventually, I researched other venues and discovered the daring, dynamic "yes" culture of indie publishers. Ben Tausig at AVCX said yes to my debut puzzle and offered brilliant guidance at every stage of development. Tracy Bennett and Laura Braunstein said yes when I asked to join the Inkubator team. Evan Birnholz encouraged me to apply to Vox.com, and they said yes too — I now publish a crossword there every Tuesday.

This is all just to say thanks to those who've offered their knowledge and support since I took that first shot in the dark three years ago. It's led to so many good things, including this "yes" from the New York Times.

I happened upon the term WEATHER BALLOONS as I was searching for entries for another theme set. It captured my imagination, and I started to think of how to put balloons in a crossword. I like that there's a visual pun in this puzzle — the circle rebuses could be little balloons floating across the grid.

I wrote many tricky clues for this puzzle, and several weren't quite right for a Wednesday. My favorites are:

• "Proust passages?" : RUES
• "One who sees the world through rosé colored glasses" : WINO

I am delighted that a fair amount of my clues did make it in, particularly the one for EGOT. I also appreciate the NYT editors' clever cluing of OBI and SLICED BREAD.

More to come, I hope!

I'm embarrassed to say I finished with a wrong letter — one that I couldn't figure out, even after knowing it was wrong. RTES probably meet in Montreal. And being a pop culture idiot, QTEEN could be a drag show term I didn't know, for a young contestant?

Well, it should be!

(Is it offensive for a non-drag queen to call a participant a QUEEN, by the way? My brother laughs when I call him a banana, but I doubt he'd laugh if a non-Asian person did.)

I enjoyed uncovering the rebuses in today's debut. WEATHER BALLOON makes for a nice visual, with the rebused words inside balloon-like circles. I was slightly confused because I uncovered ICE first — since when does ICE qualify as WEATHER? — but the rest fit perfectly.

I didn't notice at first that the four balloons exhibit crossword symmetry. There's a debate among constructors whether rebus symmetry is an asset or a liability. On the one hand, it lends elegance to the presentation, mimicking crossword symmetry. It also makes the solve much easier, which is important when running a rebus puzzle on a Wednesday. Some folks who top out at Wednesday difficulty may never have run into a rebus before, so assistance could be most welcome.

However, symmetry creates unwelcome construction constraints, forcing trade-offs. The most unfortunate ones involve the quality of themers. TEAR ASUNDER is a nice entry, but it doesn't split SUN across two words, like E PLURIBUS UNUM or MONKEYS UNCLE does.

Similarly, I bet that without the symmetry requirement, ICE could have turned into the more weather-like SNOW, in ITS NO W ONDER crossing GOES NOWHERE.

I appreciated some of the bonus touches; HOTEL BAR a highlight. RECLINER is comforting, too, and even IN A SENSE could qualify as snazzy ... okay, maybe in a sense. Helped balance out some inelegant entries like ANAG, YOO, PEES, LAN, SEN. ANAG(ram) is the only one that badly stuck out — or should I say, that sock tutu?

Fun debut, with an apt visual element. Four rebus squares, with a grid-spanning revealer, is a difficult way to debut, but Juliana did well.