New York Times, Wednesday, September 7, 2022

One day, for reasons which escape me now, I tried a Thursday puzzle. Previously, I had stuck to early-week puzzles and minis, autocheck on, and was very much content with life. I was shocked to learn afterwards that the Thursday puzzle's words included black squares. Surely, that was illegal?? Well, over time, I accumulated many colorful expressions for Thursdays. Perhaps my Ghanaian day-of-the-week first name subconsciously led me towards creating a day-of-the-week puzzle.

Constructing was hard, however, like Sudoku with words. You put one entry down only to realize it couldn't work with another. Then there were special puzzle rules, like symmetry. It led me to feel 75% intrigued about the whole thing with a 25% slice of who was I kidding. But as previous constructors' notes assured me that plebeians could create puzzles, I pressed onward.

My Scrabble wordlist betrayed me, and my puzzle was returned for workshopping. Looking at you, ZAS. So, I wised up and got mentored. Many thanks to Erik @ The Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory for nixing several dubious entries and helping me reframe my construction approach. Shout-out to family, friends, colleagues, and students who supported my efforts.

Hope you have a laugh with this one. We were all beginners once, no?

When a friend first spurred me on to pick up crosswords more than a decade ago, I was skeptical. Part of it was the perception that crosswords were for old people, but the majority was the fear that I was too dumb to finish one. But hell to the yeah, I crushed that Monday; I'VE GOT THIS!

Oh. They get harder as you go?

When I tried my first Tuesday, WISH ME LUCK was running through my head. I eventually managed to finish. But my first Wednesday, I'D LIKE SOME HINTS was my overwhelming sentiment.

(Replacing SOME with ALL THE would be more accurate.)

On Thursdays they run trick plays? WHAT IN the HELLz, Shortz?!

And Fridays were impenetrable. I looked at one as a lark and couldn't fill in a single square. Stop — GOOGLE TIME!

What an absolute delight to have this wonderful set of memories played back for me, nearly word for word. So many people seem to have "be able to regularly complete the NYT crossword" on their bucket list, and Ekua captured that spirit with playfulness. It's so meta!

Solid gridwork, too, especially for a debut. She could have stuck to a single set of long Down bonuses, but working HONDURAN / INNOCENT and DO THE DEW! / LAVA CAKE help the solve erupt with flavor. Keeping the gluey bits to things that Wednesday solvers tend to gloss over anyway — INT, NES, REI — shows the wisdom of an experienced constructor.

One of the most memorable debuts in years. I can't wait to see what Ekua does next.