New York Times, Wednesday, December 20, 2017

A close family friend had just passed. At the wake, in my grief, I believe I may have overindulged because that night I fell in my kitchen and broke my tailbone. Knowing I'd be laid up for over a month, and knowing likewise that I cannot live on Freecell and reruns of House alone, I did the only other thing I could think of while flat on my back: construct! I came up with eight themes, threw the puzzles together with little care, and submitted in a package.

To my ever-growing appreciation and delight, one of my themes was acceptable to Mr. Shortz's impeccable taste, though the construction and non-thematic entries were "subpar." (They were being polite; it was a nightmare!) I resubmitted three or four times, taking suggestions for improvement, one rejection being due, to my total mortification, to exceeding word count! How green am I? But this is my first puzzle, and I can say with near certainty that that won't happen again; shame is a powerful thing!

When I devised the theme for this puzzle, I intended it for a Thursday, which is all I will say about its content. My fondest hope is that it might be universally enjoyed.

Meanwhile, I'll return to toiling in obscurity and newfound wrinkles at my other passion: writing country songs in a small Oregon town for a fan base of three, one of whom is my mother, and will keep wondering daily why all of Nashville isn't knocking down my door.

Debut! The three plus signs are so aesthetically pleasing ... and functional! Talitha gives us three ways of forming NINE — ONE (plus) EIGHT, FOUR (plus) FIVE, SEVEN (plus) TWO so neatly exhibit crossword symmetry. Sometimes the crossword gods shine down upon you!

We recently had another usage of plus signs made of black squares, but I enjoyed seeing it again.

Additional NINE motifs, a baseball TEAM having nine players on the field, NONA the NINE prefix, SEPT the ninth month, NEIN a homophone of NINE. A bit too haphazard for me, but I appreciate the effort to bulk up the theme.

Oh right, CLOUD nine and nine LIVES! I highlighted the theme answers aside from NINE (below) to make them stand out better.

At 51 black squares, this one is nearly off the chart. (Some editors place a cap of about 38 black squares max, but Will often allows people to go up to 42.) Each extra black square makes the filling task so much easier, to the point where they get called "cheater squares." So, this went overboard for me.

I also felt like it made for way too many short answers, not enough long ones. For a puzzle featuring short themers, I want some juicy long fill to elevate my solve. TORPEDOS, TORNADO, REDHEADS, even FORSAKEN helped, but I wanted more. Note how the extra black squares on the left side of the grid nibbled away at the SW corner, taking away precious 8-letter slots. Yes, TORNADO is a goodie, but there's so much lost potential in that CHIDES slot — so much tougher to make a six-letter slot sizzle compared to an eight-letter one.

In terms of short fill, a bit of ESTE is fine, but OVEST is not the kind of debut word you aim for. The rest of the grid was pretty well executed — it's a shame that SEPT and NONA felt like crossword glue. I wonder what other NINE phrases/entries could have been substituted.

Nice idea and neatly symmetrical ways of adding up to NINE. Some flaws in execution, but I enjoy it when a new constructor debuts with a novel idea.