Mark Diehl author page

Constructing a themeless puzzle is hardly like navigating a major river — the fill rarely flows smoothly and obviously to completion. It is much more like navigating an unfamiliar river delta filled with a variety of channels to pursue. At some points along the journey, there may be picturesque entries to savor and exhilarating rushes of discovery, but there will also be stale shallows, stagnant pools, and even dead ends that force retracing one's progress, sometimes all the way back to the start!

Today's puzzle was my favorite course, but pictured to the right and left were a few other lower deltas I explored and left behind.

Hopefully, you enjoyed the boat ride I chose for you.

And Jeff, feel free to add ARGON LASER, ANTIVIRALS, ACACIA OIL, and TOWEL RINGS to the excellent XWord Info Word List [plug, plug]! Maybe someone else can debut them.

MARK: Andrea floated the idea of MAKE LOVE NOT WAR as a possible four-word phrase to form a puzzle roughly a year ago. We brainstormed four lists of lively theme entries, one each starting with MAKE, LOVE, NOT, and WAR; then developed a grid with matching-lengthed pairs. I suggested upping the ante with 6O'S as the antepenultimate down entry to act as a revealer since this position felt like the most likely slot to fill around — requiring only one entry that need start with a number. We settled on a SW corner of:

6BALL

ORIEL

SALTS

Will and company liked the idea, but wanted an actual 0[zero] instead of an O and also a different 6 entry, since "the 6 would be a shot in the dark for solvers who don't know their pool balls." Valid points, but oh my goodness, this ratcheted up the challenge significantly! After a couple of days of concerted effort, the final version emerged and passed muster. Whew! Always a pleasure working with Andrea; hope you enjoyed our efforts as much as we did.

ANDREA: What more can I say? I love Dr. Diehl. You dream something up, and he comes back with 50 choices of how to make it work. This was a follow up to our STILL WATERS RUN DEEP. I love the 60s in the corner because it took a straightforward idea and gave it a super fun little twist.

On occasion, I've been ahead of the puzzle realm curve at the NYT with the use of a specific crossword entry.

In 2011 I had a grid with BUTT DIALED rejected as being unfamiliar, only to see its debut by someone else in 2013. The faucet manufacturer MOEN sunk the first version of one of my puzzles in the late 90s, but the brand has appeared 18 times since then. This puzzle initially featured the classic SLOW ZOMBIE at 1-Across (as opposed to the FAST ZOMBIES of "28 Days Later" or "World War Z") — I guess it will remain to be seen whether the zombie dichotomy will be deemed relevant by the NYT during some future apocalypse. So hold off adding SLOW ZOMBIE and FAST ZOMBIE to the XWord Info Word List just yet, Jeff.

In this revamped version I kept the grid pattern from the failed undead ZOMBIE draft and the entry ZENO'S PARADOX but scooched it from its original 5-Down position to the opposing 21-Down slot. The surrounding fill evolved from that seeded entry until this completely different puzzle emerged — hopefully a lively and enjoyable solve.

MARK: I sent Andrea a congratulatory e-mail on her celeb-paired Monday puzzle with NdGT (03/20/17) and floated the idea of a collaborative Monday puzzle based on the old adage "still waters run deep" — four words that felt like strong candidates when used individually. Andrea liked the idea, and I liked the possibility that, with her help, I might finally score a Monday puzzle in the NYT. We batted around phrases beginning and ending with each of those four words for a day or so until Andrea lit upon the possible combo of:

STILLKICKING 12
WATERSDOWN 10 (which was the only WATERS... we could think of)
RUNONEMPTY 10 or RUNINPLACE 10
DEEPTHOUGHTS 12

Since the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament was now in a couple of days and my dear wife, Lee Ann, and I had decided to try and attend as helpers/judges every year possible — I stuck a pin in the project from my end. Then, while helping to organize registration packets on Thursday for the tourney we found that Andrea was entered to compete! That spurred me on — so I sketched out a couple of workable grids on slips from a complementary Stamford Marriott notepad and presented them to Andrea at the registration table the next day. Some more enjoyable back-and-forth followed, Andrea clued it all up, and I changed only the clue for SAW to make it a revealer before mailing our opus off to Will.

ANDREA: Mark was so easy to work with and such a delight that we did a second one immediately after Will accepted this one.

Confession: Sometimes when I'm writing the clues for a completed puzzle I will overreach the boundaries of what is a sound and workable clue. This is more common for me while trying to be "cute and clever" in fashioning end-of-the-week clues. Fortunately for the solving audience, Will Shortz and his crew are experts at discerning solid clues and reining in this "creative" tendency of mine when it runs amok.

I always do a post-mortem comparison of the final clues against what I originally sent in as a means of honing my clue-writing skills. The results of this usually fall into various categories:

1. the clues are the same or essentially the same (yay, nailed it!)
2. the clues are different, but both are technically sound (editor's choice)
3. my clue was too vague (meh!), too restrictive (meh!), or inaccurate (ugh!!). For THINK YOUNG: Keep a positive state of mind (close [maybe], but not exactly accurate)
4. my clue included a word in the puzzle (yikes!). For CLAM JUICE: Bloody Caesar ingredient (directly below BLOODBORNE [double yikes!])
5. my clue tried to be cute or clever and fell flat (thud). For BLADES: Parts from the prop department? (as in propeller, but the joke fails since BLADES could be props in a murder mystery play [hindsight doh!])

Here's hoping you found the polished puzzle entertaining.

I was wowed by the look of the wide open 10/29/16 grid by Patrick Berry when I solved it last year. In the XWord write-up for that puzzle, Jeff Chen stated his curiosity was piqued wondering if the grid could be filled after trimming the six corner squares down to three. For kicks, I accepted the challenge and sent Jeff a very rough fill with the new grid parameters that had some fun stuff, but also more blah than sparkle.

The challenge then sat idle for a couple months will I worked on other projects, but I came across it again, flipped the grid, tweaked the placement of black squares a bit and finally came up with a fill that registered much higher on my themeless-fun scale. As always, thanks to Will and Joel for substituting the entertaining quote at 61 Across as a clue and all their other shiny touches.

Feel free to add the 15-letter DOUBLEDOGDAREYA to the word list, too, Jeff.

This puzzle was spawned entirely by the grid.

While wandering around XWord Info I noticed there was a section titled "Most Wide Open Grids" and hey I like wide openness, so challenge accepted! I ripped off Sherry O. Blackard's awesome wide open grid from 04/14/07, knocked off the two cheater squares, and tada — all that was needed was a clean fill to set a new NYT record.

Seventeen descending 15-letter entries trials later I stumbled onto a promising fill for the NW quadrant — then only 57 almost acceptable fills of the other quadrants before I had a complete fill I could live with. Submitted it to Will and it was accepted!

Then came the wait for publication followed by another unexpected twist — Will contacted me and asked if he could use it as the final on stage puzzle for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in 2016. What could I say but YES (check off bucket list item) and make plans to attend and watch the finals in person. Howard Barkin's dramatic win was the cherry on the top of the whole experience.

As soon as I returned home, I started the whole process again — today's puzzle is a completely different fill of the same grid.

Sometimes it's a choice phrase or two that fuels my themeless-constructing jones and sometimes it's the grid. In this case it was the grid.

I had a yearning to tackle a wide-open grid pattern with a stair-step center of 10 longish intersecting across and down entries. To somewhat simplify the challenge of the task, I settled on this particular configuration which breaks the fill into 3 sections: a broad SW to NE running swath that feeds narrowly into separate NW and SE caverns. So to fill, you just simply (polite cough) populate the central zone with mostly multi-word phrases that have a bit of sparkle or single words that can be elevated with the clues, then hope you can come up with two breathtaking fills for the other two areas. I'll leave it to you if this one came close.

At least, I was able to add 10 new entries to the excellent XWord Info Word List! As always, thanks to Will and Joel for polishing the clues.

SWIPE LEFT was the launching point for this puzzle. I heard it in an anti-smoking TV ad featuring the ditty "Left Swipe Dat" at the end of 2015 and wondered if it might make a fresh seed for a themeless. After asking around it became apparent that almost everyone but me recognized the phrase — mainly because I don't own a cell phone (much to the head-shaking disbelief of my family and friends).

Decided to stack SWIPE LEFT atop two other 9's by placing three vertical blocks, then placed three horizontal blocks midway down the left side and blocked diagonally up and to the right from there. Added a diagonal string to help divide the two halves. But then had to leave gaps below/above the three vertical blocks to avoid 2-letter spans. Upped the ante by sliding a pair of the blocks over to open the flow into the upper left and lower right (see picture).

The final fill felt smooth and even — not a lot of flash, but solid. Liked TOM RIPLEY, CRAISINS (yum — surprised it hadn't appeared before), CAPE COD BAY crossing BBQ RIBS (double yum!) and AIRSOFT, and even BIOBURDEN (it resonates with me as a dentist with the VA). Enjoyed the shiny clues Will and Joel came up with for CAMPS and SAHL.

And I'm glad Will kept my "cheese and rice!" clue for NERTS. The phrase brings to my mind a picture of Inspector Cramer (hmm...15 letters — add that to your list, Jeff) sitting across from Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin in Nero's office, while chomping on his cigar and growling that minced oath in frustration!

The initial criteria I set for this themeless:

1. W-X-Y-Z, in order, in the four corners.
2. Three stacked 10's radiating from each corner.
3. Open flow in and out of each stacked area.
4. Find interesting sets of stacks, preferably multiword phrases.

Modification (or compromise if you must) made early on: inclusion of two "cheater squares" that allowed the entry X AND Y AXES (I liked that one a lot), but it cost me criterion #2 (minor) and dual symmetry (minor).

Will rejected my first completed submission for including one of my favorite celebrities at 62-Across — you can see who it was by solving here. (Jeff: You can see the solution by pressing F9. And Will has mentioned in the past that he wouldn't run his own name in a grid, as that feels too self-serving.) Good news, the second version was accepted (and in retrospect probably fulfilled criterion #4 better).

And CONGRATULATIONS on the new addition, Jake David Denny Chen! (Jeff: two-week old Jake is a superb sleeper, thankfully. Also a prodigious pooper, not so thankfully — for me at least. He seems to greatly enjoy it.)

According to my records, it's been about 4 years since my last submission to the NYT — but then I've always been a streaky sort of constructor. The last few years of my puzzling spare time I spent digitizing old crosswords for David Steinberg's ambitious Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project, from the NYT newspaper archives going back to the debut of its puzzle in 1942. It was a diverting time, moseying through the passing decades of Americana and reveling in the ever-changing usage of our language. And once that was done, it seemed natural to submit some new ones.

This is the first of several to come. FACE PLANT with the clue [Result of a bad trip] was the starting point. The fill flowed from there without a hiccup, which rarely happens. Did upgrade the lower left from FANATIC crossing FALLOVER, AGUILERA, NELLIGAN in an initial version to the more lively (and less name-laden) SHOPVAC/SLAPJACK, otherwise not much heavy massaging was necessary.

Will's acceptance email included: "The fill has a lot of tough vocabulary, but it's all fair game. It should make for a tough test for even the sharpest solvers." Hopefully, it didn't cause much 61-Across :).