New York Times, Friday, September 1, 2023

My goal in constructing this one is to start with a relatively interconnected 72-word grid, provide a bevy of fresh and lively marquee answers, and create a smooth and entertaining solving experience. Being a Friday puzzle, I also tried to balance keeping it accessible for newbie themeless solvers while still having enough meat on the bones to satisfy even the most experienced weekend warriors.

In the end, I was pretty happy that ten of the fourteen longest entries are NYT debuts, along with one additional Shortz-era debut. Moreover, many of these entries resonated with me personally. Having spent a couple of decades developing large renewable-energy power plants, I've seen over a hundred thousand 6-downs in my lifetime (which became my starting point for filling this grid). 24-down brought back many fond memories of a misspent decade tooling my 1985 CJ-7 around the beach communities of Southern California with the top down and the doors off — year round, even in the rain. I have 14-across on more things than I care to admit publicly. I even had a couple of 17-acrosses silently guarding my home for years.

And, of course, 31-down had me absentmindedly singing that song in my head for days after working on this puzzle.

All this with only (IMHO) a wee bit of all-organic, non-toxic glue to hold it all together. I really enjoyed creating this one and thought to myself, "11-down!" when it was done.

I hope you did, too.

Day five of "Gotta JET" (Jeff's expressions of thanks)! I've had the honor of working with dozens of new constructors, and it's been a pleasure collaborating with Robert. I'm always impressed at his tenacity, never giving up in the face of the ridiculously-low NYT acceptance rate (around 3-4% these days). "Grit" is by far the quality that's most correlated with success. After years of grinding away at it, one of our early products finally made it into the Wall Street Journal last year.

I'm also appreciative of being proven wrong over and over again. One of my most common pieces of advice has been for newer constructors to focus on the types of crosswords facing greatest demand and lowest supply.

The one area I advise: stay away from is themelesses. Everybody defaults to themelesses, because it's so hard to arrive at a fresh, smart theme. With a strong word list, you can punch out a passable 72-word themeless in minutes. With some guidance, an NYT-quality one might only be a matter of days away. The acceptance rate for themelesses is so much lower than the overall average, and only two or three outlets take them, so why even waste your time?

It's great that Robert followed his heart, because I'm proven wrong yet again. The doses of humility keep me grounded, and that's a wonderful thing. I frequently tell people, "what the hell do I know" and "just one idiot's opinion" — perhaps one day everyone will realize that I'm not just joking around.

I've so greatly enjoyed working with so many people over the years — not as a mentor, but more as an equal partner in collaboration. I'm thankful to people like Robert who give me these opportunities.