Alan Olschwang author page

I have been creating puzzles since 1994. This is my 10th Times puzzle. Most have been of today's type, a non-themed (Friday or Saturday) puzzle. While trying to create this type of puzzle can be fun, it can also be very frustrating. Of course, the software does much of the work, but the difficulty lies in avoiding unacceptable entries. Where there are a number of long entries in a 15 by 15 puzzle, particularly ones that appear in adjacent rows or columns (in this case three 15 letter entries running down the center of the puzzle), the options for other entries may become quite limited.

I continue to be amazed by some of the published Friday and Saturday Times puzzles as I attempt to solve them. I know from experience just how hard it is to put together a good puzzle of this type. Periodically, I will decide that it is time for me to work on a new one. More often than not, there be one or more areas where I will need to use an entry that is not very good. Often it's a three letter entry. At this point, I may scrub the puzzle. But that doesn't stop me from trying again. When I am not working on one of these puzzles, I am always on the lookout for new long, particularly 15 letter, entries. Where I can get three of these to go together well or place five or six good ones in a grid, I may have the start of a good non-themed puzzle.

In my years of puzzle writing, I've had more than 4,000 puzzles published, including crosswords and more than 30 other types of word puzzles. I'm four years into full retirement from my legal career and create puzzles to stay young. If you like this puzzle, please check out my eBook of puzzles book on the free Puzzazz app.

I have been creating puzzles since 1994. Over the years, I've been able to place puzzles with most publishers, including having seven or eight daily puzzles in the Times. Perhaps ten years ago, I decided to have a go at placing a puzzle in the Sunday Times. I've tried to do so once or twice a year since then, failing every time. Although I had sent what I consider my best work each time, I have the sense that I was not very close to acceptance in any case. After each puzzle was rejected, in most cases I was able to place it or another puzzle with the same theme elsewhere, I started to think that I should give up the idea of placing a Sunday puzzle in the Times. However, I hadn't quite gotten there yet. I do have ideas for puzzles pop into my head pretty regularly and, being retired, have time to work with them.

In this particularly case, somehow I started thinking about the way different ended, such as Walter Cronkite's "That's The Way It Is". I wondered if I could come up with a good set of famous show closings as the theme entries for a 21x puzzle. I thought of different ways to do this and decided to take a chance and ask Will if he might be interested in any of them. I have not attempted to dialogue with Will on any of my other submissions to him either before or since knowing it is asking a lot of him to do so given the volume of submissions he receives. Anyhow, the theme did interest him, and we had some dialogue. That eventually led to this puzzle, but not before my first attempt to do this was rejected. I believe there are three reasons why I was finally successful with this version. First, Will did like the theme. In fact, he is entitled to most of the credit for the key theme entry (which entry will be apparent to the solver). Second, I was able to do this puzzle with 134 entries. Finally, I was able to avoid entries that Will considered unacceptable.

In my years of puzzle writing, I've had more than 4,000 puzzles published, including crosswords and more than 25 other types of word puzzles. I'm 3½ years into full retirement from my career business and created puzzles to stay young. If you like this puzzle, please check out my ebook of puzzles book on the free Puzzazz app.