New York Times, Saturday, January 3, 2015

From a constructor's standpoint, it's always interesting to look at a puzzle that you haven't touched in seemingly forever. The one published today was constructed over 2 years ago, when I was in my novice stages of puzzlemaking...and as happy as I am with its acceptance and publication, I can see parts of the fill that I know I would have reworked, had I constructed this puzzle more recently.

For instance, the top-right doesn't feel like my normal work, with ELUL / VALS / ENL right next to each other, and nothing in the stack of 9's really sparkling. But hey, Will accepted this, so I must have done something right! The more fascinating part about looking at this puzzle now is noticing the development of clues over time. When I sent this puzzle in, I had SKYY VODKA clued as [Liquor with the slogan "Passion for perfection"]. Well, not only did another constructor debut this entry before me in a 2012 NYT puzzle (grr!), but the slogan in the clue was updated to "West of Expected," which I assume happened because the original one became outdated. Hence, as time flies, clue tweaks become necessary! Unless, of course, I had the slogan all wrong to begin with ...

Enough with my lamenting and scrutiny. What'd I like about this puzzle? Well, I like MOZZARELLA STICK, my seed entry. I like BRAIN GAME (for which Will made a nice clue). And I like the way this puzzle "talks" to the solver, with "OH, I FORGOT" and "SAYS ME" and "HOLD ON A SEC." Coming up with LIVE RADAR while constructing helped me out of a real bind in the bottom-right. Pleased with all the clue saves Will made for crosswordese-y bits. Most of all, I'm just grateful to be constructing for the Times, and I can promise many more puzzle in the future! Thank you all, and enjoy!

P.S.: If you're interested in solving more of my work, feel free to check out my "indie" blog, The Grid Kid. New puzzle every Monday with some zippy stuff!

It made me sad when TGI Friday's announced their "bottomless appetizers" — I would have been all over the MOZZARELLA STICK when I was 20, or even 30, but I couldn't handle it now. Stupid digestive system getting more finicky and (description redacted due to breakfast test violations).

Sam goes big, not only using the standard four sets of triple-stacks in the corners but also connecting them, running MOZZARELLA STICK across the middle and SAFETY BELT and HOLD ON A SEC from top to bottom. Even with all that, he manages a really nice SE stack: LIVE RADAR, ECOLOGIST, and the crazy looking SKYY VODKA. Great answers, well done there.

So much interconnect all throughout the grid often causes filling problems. Check out the NW. Even with TONY DANZA's Z, working through that triple-stack on its own is not super hard. Now, throw in MOZZARELLA STICK to constrain things, fixing that M and O into place. Sure, you can still come up with some great answers like BRAIN GAME and OH I FORGOT, but can you do it without the ugly –IFY and AINT I next to each other? Tough task once you fix a few letters into place.

In the NE, SAFETY BELT is a pretty good answer. But once you fix the S A F in place, your choices for marquee answers drop by a big factor. I like FULL TIMER. ALAN-A-DALE isn't really in ROBIN HOOD's stratosphere, though. Or MAID MARIAN. Not even FRIAR TUCK. ALAN-A-DALE has such a friendly alternating vowel consonant pattern that it's quite useful in crosswords, but this guy seems pretty far down the list.

And while the SEVEN IRON is a useful club, so is the SIX IRON. And the FIVE IRON. (ad nauseam) I'm not a golfer — that's what other golfers tell me on the course, anyway — but if anyone knows of a type of shot only a SEVEN IRON can make (a trick shot, even better!), that sort of specificity would have elevated this to a great entry / clue.

Loved the clue for ABYSS — unfathomable, indeed. The fact that it didn't need a question mark (which would have given away the game) made it even better.