New York Times, Monday, July 11, 2022

The theme came to me literally right before bed when I realized that BLUEPRINTS could have an alternate meaning. From there, I quickly thought of GREEN THUMB and FINGERPAINTS, but I struggled to round it out. I couldn't think of a way to incorporate getting "caught red-handed," so I went with WHITE KNUCKLE, which I landed on around 5 in the morning.

The fill is completely different from what was first accepted. About two months ago, I tested out some new constructing software by ripping out everything except the theme answers, and I managed to put together the new fill in a few hours. I sent it to the Times, and the rest is history.

Special thanks to my dad, who has been doing crosswords for years and has always supported my constructing efforts. I also wanted to acknowledge Evan Birnholz, who has gone out of his way to give me helpful feedback on this puzzle and many others. Lastly, shoutout to my friends who put up with unsolicited emails every time I make a new puzzle (many of which can be found at my site, crossedup.net) and to my nearly two-year-old niece, who is going to be a fingerpainting prodigy.

I can't quite put my finger on this theme … wait a sec, I sure can! Handy idea to imagine FINGERPAINT as tying together phrases in the form of (color) + (finger term). Unbelievable that there were three colorful (sorry) phrases that did precisely that.

Constructors are always searching for El Dorado, the Fountain of Youth, the Platonic Ideal of theme perfection. Here, that might come in the form of something like GREEN THUMB, (color) INDEX, (color) MIDDLE, (color) RING, (color) PINKY. It quickly becomes apparent that that's a fool errand, so the question then follows: is the theme worth doing as is, even though THUMB is a specific finger while KNUCKLE and PRINTS are parts of fingers? What about the inelegance of KNUCKLE being singular and PRINTS plural?

Objections overruled; suck it Plato! The creativity of connecting KNUCKLE, PRINTS, THUMB far outweighs the nits.

Impressive debut gridwork. I wasn't surprised to hear that Roy has a technical background and applied it to his filling process. Such a smooth Monday solve, along with enough pizzazz in HOT WIRES, SHIPS LOG, EGG NOG, NPR NEWS.

It confuses me when I hear old-guard criticism about reliance on tech. I think it's helpful to go through the filling process with a piece of graph paper once, so you get a sense of the inherent challenges, but why would you stubbornly stick to a typewriter if you could use a computer? Are you still using a landline, refusing a smartphone?

Some great Monday-accessible clues, too, a treat to riff on Oldman and Newman for OSCAR, and Stevie Nicks and the Knicks playing at an ARENA.

Novel theme plus excellence in gridwork and cluing. Looking forward to more from Roy.