NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

Andrew Chaikin, of San Francisco, is an electronic-blues musician who goes by the name Kid Beyond. He has played with such luminaries as James Brown, Ray Charles, Will.I.Am and Sara Bareilles.

This is his third Sunday crossword for The Times. Last January he made a resolution to have another puzzle in the paper by the end of the year. In October, with time running out, he thought, "What's an idea they'd want to publish by December 31?" Voilà!

The initial spark for this puzzle was LOSE TEN POUNDS, which didn't end up making the cut. My testers rightly noted that no British person, no matter how absent-minded or confused about gambling, would want to lose money.

Other resolutions on the cutting room floor: FIND A LIFE PARTNER (lonely board-gamer), CLEAN UP THE HOUSE (Congressional ethicist), START RUNNING (hesitant politician), DO SOME TRAVELING (brazen basketballer).

Making this puzzle took a village: Alison Muratore, Greg Pliska, Eric Chaikin, Debbie Goldstein, and NeilFred Picciotto all provided valuable feedback. And as always, my puzzle sensei Tyler Hinman generously evaluated many, many iterations of the filled grid — sparing the nation's solvers the indignity of answers like ONER, PLUR, RVER, EBOND, and so on.

Not coincidentally, these folks are all members of a wonderful, welcoming organization called the National Puzzlers' League. If you want to spend four days playing ingenious, hand-crafted word puzzles of all kinds, this year's convention is in Toronto in July!

I made it a priority to keep partials out of the grid, and crosswordese to a minimum. I broke up some lovely bonuses — PALESTINIAN, SEALTHEDEAL — to enable cleaner, shorter entries elsewhere. But that pile of ESAI ATTA SSR SRO etc. tells me I can still do better — and I'm sorry there aren't more famous MARCIs!

I also made it a priority to include as many women, people of color, and LGBTQ folks in the puzzle as possible — and I was glad to see that most of my efforts made it through the editing process. Representation in popular culture — including crosswords — can help create a more just, inclusive, loving world. May it be so in 2020.

I'm a big fan of Will Shortz's notes, and today's was outstanding. I had no idea Andrew was an actual rock star! And that story about making a resolution to get another xw into the NYT is so meta.

Kooky reinterpretations of in-the-language phrases is a standard theme type, but it's one that I don't tire of. I enjoy having normal-looking phrases as themers, and there's so much humor in rethinking how they might be said, or who might say them. It gets to the heart of clever wordplay. CLEAN OUT THE HOUSE is such an apt resolution for a house husband … or a gambler! PLAN A PERFECT GETAWAY is right up there, describing a resolution for a vacationer, or a thief.

Typically, MY and I are frowned upon in theme formatting, Will much preferring ONE or ONES — GROW ONE'S NEST EGG and WATCH WHAT ONE EATS. In today's case, I like the first-person approach. As with novels, first person can make a reader / solver feel even closer to the story.

I wanted GIVE UP BAD HABITS instead of OLD HABITS, but I can see a case for the latter. It's hard to call an article of clothing "bad."

136 words is so tough to execute on. You might guess that I'm going to spout off my usual broken record spiel about how it was a terrible idea. I'm mixed today, though. The areas that usually cause problems are the biggest swaths of white, but the NW and SE are solidly above average. I appreciated how they gave the puzzle some bite; a nice solving challenge.

It's the center that gave me doubts. ESAI to SSR to GO WALKIES (can't decide if I love it or not, but crossing SNOG might kill some perfect solves) to KON to SALT I — separating those three middle themers more by deploying extra black squares would have helped a ton.

So maybe I am playing that broken record. A 140-word grid would have uplifted the theme, perhaps even pushing the overall product to POW! territory. Such an apt idea for the upcoming Happy New Year!