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DICK:

This puzzle was accepted for publication on June 30, 2013, before my Sunday collaboration with Jeff published last February was accepted. Thus, this is really my maiden effort at puzzle creation. The idea for the puzzle began with a triple homophone and clue that just popped into my head while coming awake from an afternoon nap, but that did not survive: LET THE BEE BE BEA, clued to refer to a Golden Girl (Bea Arthur) waving at a stinging buzzer, was the thought provoker, and I developed a list of similar triple homonyms and sent it to Jeff with the request that he co-create if the idea appealed to him.

As a total novice, I had no idea how to go forward with grid creation, fill, cluing or any other aspect of puzzle creation. There were, on my list, some ideas Jeff liked but no internal grammatical or stylistic consistency. Some had just 3 words, some 4, some 5, some in the present, some in the past, etc. If you are a fan of Jeff Chen puzzles, you know that such sloppiness of internal thematic consistency does not pass muster. He came up with the tabloid headline clue structure and the fill structure where every themer is only 3 words, and all follow the identical grammatical pattern. I had taken the first shot at cluing the non-themers and tried for Thursday level difficulty and misdirection. Jeff saw it more as a Monday or Tuesday puzzle and together we simplified the clues. None of this seemed to matter as Will accepted it as a Wednesday and rewrote what seems to me to be a very considerable number of the clues. Maybe that's the norm; I do not know. If you already know the answers, as I did, it might be hard to see a change upward in level of difficulty of the clues.

– puzzle by Dick Shlakman and Jeff Chen

Very proud to make my debut today! When I thought of this theme I instantly loved it (I still do) and I'm glad Will liked it enough to accept the puzzle despite it having 80 words and a couple sections of not-great fill. I don't like ESSENES next to NOOSES any more than the next guy (especially crossed by DSO and ONONE), but I'm somewhat okay with it because (a) I was unable to make it work with anything better; (b) I liked my clue for NOOSES; and (c) somewhere, someone is trying to cram [ASH]KENAZI into 50D.

The biggest change to my clues that Will made was taking out a lot of that sort of one-dimensional misdirection. For example, my clue for SL[ASH] was "Guns N' Roses rocker," for which the obvious answer is the 3-letter AXL. In one revision I had that at 59A and had [ASH]LEE at 60D with the clue "A Simpson sister," which would of course make the solver confidently enter the 4-letter LISA, reinforcing the incorrect L. I think that kind of misdirection is fun, but once the solver has grokked the theme, those clues might fall flat. My favorite clue that didn't make it — my favorite clue in my entire original submission, actually — was "Headed for the beach" for 62A (WASHING ASHORE). My favorite clues that did make it were 36A (PAR) and 42D (LOO).

My first passion is running, so I was happy that BOLT retained its Usain definition rather than being clued as the verb, and I was VERY happy (and surprised) that [ASH]TON was kept as Eaton (who lives in the same city as me) rather than Kutcher. I was also glad that RON's clue referenced Arrested Development, my favorite TV show.

Overall I'm not too [ASH]AMED of the final product since it's my debut. I hope to make a few more NYT-worthy puzzles and I'm sure the quality will improve with each one.

– puzzle by Luke Vaughn

I constructed this puzzle very recently (in early March, to be exact), and Will accepted it just two weeks ago — thus, I was surprised and thrilled to see this one appear so quickly! This puzzle is, in my opinion, the strongest themeless I've ever constructed. I started with BIKER CHICK and JIM BEAM at the center of the puzzle; not surprisingly, the grid refused to fill with my cleanest word list.

I ordinarily would have started from scratch with a different pair of theme entries, but I had a good feeling about this arrangement, especially since I had been able to produce a partial fill that looked pretty good. Using one of my crunchier (not yet sorted and scored) word lists, I was able to produce the fill for the center of the puzzle; it turned out that the only reason the grid hadn't been able to fill originally was that I hadn't yet added BAD AREAS, OVIFORM, or BIKEL to my clean list, all of which I feel are fair game and have since added. I was particularly pleased with FAKE IDS, DIVE BAR, NO MERCY, GAMEBOY, and GENDER BIAS (in addition to the seed entries, of course), and I didn't end up with any real stinkers, so I moved on to the upper left and lower right corners. I noticed in hindsight that the central three across entries pertained to alcohol, so don't get any wrong ideas (at least until I'm 21)!

The lower right corner was a bear to fill — I soon discovered that I, C, and K, when put together, accurately reflected my sentiment about the difficulty of the corner! Nevertheless, I was pleased to be able to squeeze I CALLED IT, HOT DATES, and ARSONIST into that region, and the only minor blemish I perceived was CEN. I originally had HINGED ON at 30-Down, but I was really struggling to come up with a clue for this entry that was accurate but that didn't repeat the word ON. Luckily, BINGED ON (which wasn't in any of my word lists and struck me as a more interesting entry to boot) popped into my mind, and I was able to quickly patch up that corner. The upper left was also tough — although I liked COOL HEAD and ALL SORTS, SCARF RING was new to me (one of the downsides of being a California boy!). My mom had heard of SCARF RING, though, so I went ahead with that corner.

As always, Will made my clues a lot better, though I was particularly glad to see that he preserved "Ignition technician?" for ARSONIST and the plays on minor documents and cheap shots in the FAKE IDS and DIVE BAR clues, respectively. I hope you all enjoy this puzzle (which, by popular demand, is free of rappers and proper names with creative spellings), and here's to a great summer of puzzles [toasts with root beer bottle]!

– puzzle by David Steinberg

I submitted this puzzle roughly eight months ago — a pretty quick turnaround these days. Any difficulty in construction resulted from my attempt to fit COLOR in the sequence — but that just wasn't going to work.

I also vacillated a lot as to whether to include BEAUTY PARLOR in the grid. On the one hand, I don't necessarily like to hit solvers over the head with the theme if a revealer isn't needed; I sort of enjoy that aha moment when you suddenly realize what it is. But I also see comments so often from people who say they didn't realize what the theme was, or even that the puzzle had one. So finally, for an early-week puzzle, I decided to put it in — especially since the grid accommodated it so easily. Without those added entries the sides could have had snappier fill, but such are the compromises we have to make.

Sure, clues were changed, but the overall balance seems similar to what I submitted. One clue's demise was predictable: My clue for NPR was "Station that airs the Puzzlemaster."

– puzzle by Lynn Lempel

Most of my few puzzle successes have involved lots of hard work and rewrites, but this little star-trek came together in a couple hours and (startlingly) was accepted by Will without changes a couple weeks after submission. While it sat in the queue I sent Will a couple ideas to smooth out some glitches, but he thought the ideas caused new problems and went with the original version. This was one of my early puzzles — back in the day when I thought five letter partials were sort of trendy and "cute" — now I would keep one only after a long hard battle. I would still keep AS WAS, but I would find a way to get rid of USE IN (and GIE). I only intended to have four theme entries but when ASTARTE came up out of the blue I looked for a star in the east. STARE is a pretty weak co-star that also just popped up during the fill. I like the way MOM and DAD are joined by MAD and run thru OBAMA — talk about your star-crossed lovers! Hope you enjoyed the stargazing!

– puzzle by Bruce Haight

Crossword construction began for me as a stupid bet, which created a very steep unassisted learning curve. Then it became a bit of an obsession. At one point, my wife had to ask that I stop tracing letters into the steam (a grid of shower tiles is a decent place to figure out that pesky 4x4 corner). Finally, it has settled into a pleasant hobby, a friendly competition / collaboration with Mike Hawkins. I can always trust his smiles or scowls.

When I got this idea, I used OneLook to fill a sheet of paper with phrases that contained the word "silent," pared down to my favorites, and then made long handwritten lists of the words featuring an appropriate silent letter, to give me as many layout options as possible. As I worked, I noticed an opportunity to make HONEST and ISLAND into more interesting entries, though this required a great deal of daunting interlock (plus, 5d (HONEST WOMAN) gave me pause, but I think the clue handles it judiciously). Filling the puzzle was like fighting to wriggle into a sweatshirt with wet skin — I managed, though it remains twisted and uncomfortable in some places. It was a conscious trade-off, and I am prepared to be blog-skewered for an ugly abbreviation at 9d (DPT), a knot of e's and s's, and too many French words (except DEMESNE, which indeed has French origins, but which has stuck in my brain since reading it on the first page of The Call of the Wild in fifth grade).

As for clues, it was a more pleasant experience this time, since Mr. Shortz changed only a handful, and most of those to make the theme answers easier. I politely contest his clue for 29d (CDs), which should read "What there may be very very very little interest in, if your portfolio looks like mine." Anyway, I'm learning the art of clues, slowly. I did have 11d (MANON) as the phrase soccer players shout to one another when they are about to be slide-tackled, but I guess I'll have to keep my World Cup enthusiasm to myself. Go USA! Oh, wait…

– puzzle by John Guzzetta

Sam: So, Vic, do you recall how we came up with this ANAKIN SKYWALKER puzzle?

Vic: Uh ... Anakin was a classmate of yours. He friended you on Facebook. And I said, "We should totally put him in a puzzle! I loved him in that Ewok movie."

Sam: Precisely! BTW, Anakin did well in Econ last semester. So, yeah, we designed this grid with as much lively fill as possible, garnished it with some Scrabbly flair. I even learned a word; when you suggested DEMIJOHN, I Googled for a tabloid name between stars Moore and Cusack ... since when are they an item?

Vic: When you told me that story about finding an ENERGY BAR in a SEWER LINE and thinking, "I bet that TASTES BAD!", who'd a-thunk you could jam those phrases into a crossword?! You use lots of multi-unit answers. In a themeless you did in May, there were, like, 50! Where'd you learn that?

Sam: I'll never tell. [wink] But it's not like I was working alone.

Vic: How cool is it that Will kept several of our clues! Like yours for PEEN, "Part for a whackjob?"

Sam: "What Kramer often called Seinfeld" was yours for JER.

Vic: "They might like your comments" — your clue for FACEBOOK FRIENDS.

Sam: My clue for BUTTS — "Moon units?" — was changed only slightly, to "Moon views?"

Vic: Close enough! I'll give it to you.

Sam: Loved your clue for TE AMO, "Phrase cooed en español."

Vic: And I loved yours for AREA CODES, "409 and 410, but not 411."

Sam: All in all, a good effort. I hope everyone likes what they see. It's been a pleasure working with you.

Vic! Here's to many more collaborations!

Vic: As they say in the clue for IT'D BE ... my pleasure!

Sam: That wasn't in our puzzle.

Vic: No, but it coulda been.

Sam: BARCA was the better choice.

Vic: Especially with your clue, "Spanish soccer club, to fans."

– puzzle by Sam Ezersky and Victor Fleming

This is the result of collaboration between members of two parties long thought to be incapable of mutual agreement. Those parties are, of course, Red Sox Nation and Yankees Universe.

The meeting was by chance: we had puzzles published back-to-back (11/10/11 and 11/11/11), and we were thus able to see each other's email addresses. You must know that I (Tim) am very shy by nature, so the thought had never entered my mind to contact anyone to collaborate with. Despite that, we got in touch over nine months later... I (Alex) wrote to Tim on August 31, 2012, seeing as he was the constructor for the next day, the day of my mother's second wedding, at which I was best man.

In summer 2012, I (Alex) came up with the combination of TAPPAN ZEE BRIDGE and LIBATION BEARERS in rows 3 and 4 and CUTLETS and LIP BALM (the latter not yet having been used in the NYT back then) crossing them. At one point, Tim and I tried 4-5-4 across the top and bottom two rows, but sticking with 3-7-3 made it much easier to work with those 7's. We agreed on either SEMIGLOSS PAINTS or SEMISOFT CHEESES for the third span. The top left and middle fell into place because there were few other options for those sections; once we discovered that –SES presented more options than –NTS, CHEESES it was. There was some debate over the fill in the NE, but, once we found ORESTES, a tie-in to 20A, that was it.

The bottom was harder. The age-old debate arose: pangram or smoother fill? We tried a number of stacks: STREAK FREE SHINE / IT'S THE LATEST FAD, LEAVES A BAD TASTE / INCOME TAX RETURN, SPACE SATELLITES / AEROBIC EXERCISE — here we abandoned Scrabbly fill — FAST EDDIE FELSON / IMPERIAL MEASURE, then this one. There was some hang-up over SPANG, but we thought the fill in the bottom center to be much better with than without it. And I (Alex) feel fortunate to have still been able to use one Scrabbly letter in the bottom half, as I thought the Z in TAPPAN ZEE BRIDGE might feel lonely with no other Scrabbly letters in the grid.

As for cluing, we agreed to both write full sets and chat over Gmail, going clue by clue and deciding which one was better. We found that to be better than splitting the clues in half, because deciding between two clues for each entry would make a better product. Of particular note is the one for ELBE, not being able to decide between referring to the Vltava and the border between West and East Germany (which the Elbe formed part of) and thus putting both in our manuscript.

Thanks, Will, for the terrific job you've done editing this and all our puzzles. And thank you, reader, for enjoying our puzzle!

– puzzle by Tim Croce and Alex Vratsanos

I constructed this puzzle while staying at my sister's house, so a big thanks to her for the hospitality! Another shout-out goes to Doris Day, whose recording of "Que Sera Sera" I played many times while filling the grid. (The song didn't make it into the puzzle, but its tautological refrain and circular storyline fit with the theme).

For a while, the central three theme answers were going to be I YAM WHAT I YAM, IT IS WHAT IT IS, and WE R WHO WE R (a Kesha song), which I thought made a fun trio due to their parallel wording. However, two strangely-spelled pop-culture references seemed a bit much for one puzzle, so I scrapped WE R WHO WE R. (IYAMWHATIYAM is not too hard to parse, but WERWHOWER would look pretty strange to those unfamiliar with the song).

The central ring was a late addition; I had already filled and clued a version of the puzzle before I thought of it. Incorporating the ring made the overall fill much more difficult because it required extra black squares in the center, forcing a wide-open periphery. Wording the note was also tricky because most people know the line as "A rose is a rose is a rose," but Gertrude Stein first phrased it as "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." Therefore, the note does not mention where to start reading the ring, making both interpretations possible. I regretted leaving the note ambiguous, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

– puzzle by Tom McCoy

I'm a math guy (it was my major and I do math tutoring), so one day this theme idea dawned on me. It worked out perfectly that TRIANGLES has nine letters, which can be grouped into three sets of three, which can then form the three types of triangles shown in the puzzle. I originally had one circle in a different square: the circle on the I in ELITISM was on the I in IAN. I liked it there because then all three triangles had the same base length and their placement was more symmetrical. It was pointed out to me, though, that the top left triangle wouldn't look scalene — at least with the square dimensions published in the NYT. So that had to be changed, unfortunately.

Another thing I like about this puzzle is that it has left-right symmetry. It's always nice to be able to do something different.

I was happy to get in some nice longer fill, though nothing too exciting. I think my favorites are ROMNEY and TEXTERS because of their relative currentness. I also like the clue for 3-Down, which survived the editing process.

– puzzle by Daniel Raymon

I am a sixteen-year-old student from Bethesda, Maryland. Even though I am young, I have loved solving crosswords for a long time. In the past couple years, I became interested in making my own crosswords, and I have been the puzzlemaker for my high school newspaper since then.

This puzzle, which marks my debut in The New York Times, was a total adventure and learning experience for me. It started when I met Ian Livengood, an alumnus of my school and a prolific Times crossword contributor, at my school's career day. I told him about my love of crosswords, and he encouraged me to submit one of my puzzles to The Times.

I had constructed the earliest version of this puzzle to be used in my school's newspaper. Bringing the puzzle up to Times quality, however, required me to rework and refine both the theme and the fill. Though the original theme stayed the same, some of the original theme words, such as UNKNOWN QUANTITY, and HIDDEN TALENTS, didn't make it through the editing process. It took me a while to refine the theme, with phrases such as VICTORIAS SECRET and LA CONFIDENTIAL tossed around, but eventually the puzzle all came together, and PRIVATE PARTS and its double meaning came to be.

Some of my favorite words in this puzzle that came from all the reworking and the many drafts include CLAM BAKE, JOURNAL, FIVE AM, and my hometown shout-out, DC AREA. Unfortunately, some of my other favorite words such as EXLAX (I really like Scrabble-y letters) and SINATRA didn't make it, but hopefully they will make it into my next Times puzzle!

– puzzle by Matt Fuchs

This puzzle started out as a Sunday with a related but different theme. The theme answers were going to be things like CAVEMAN MANCAVE, "Neanderthal's hangout with a stocked fridge and plasma TV?", and HUNTSMAN MANHUNTS "Searches for a Utah politician?".

I had a couple problems with this though — solvers would be able to fill in the answers too easily once they figured out the theme, and I couldn't find enough examples that sounded natural. I still liked the idea of these flippable phrases, though, so this sat around a while in my files until I finally figured out a different way it could work. I think that this lesson, to keep tinkering with a puzzle until you've presented it in the best way you can, is a valuable one for budding constructors.

Finally, I hope the cross-referencing in this one didn't bother solvers too much. I definitely was aware that some people hate this, but I think the fact that the theme answers intersect means people don't have to hop around the grid too much. Also, the NY Times' new solving interface highlights cross-referenced answers, which I think improves the solving experience in puzzles like this.

– puzzle by Joel Fagliano

Hello, Howard Barkin here. When I'm not filling in these waffly grid-like things, I'm having some family time, reading, or playing league floor hockey (ice hockey rules, played without skates, and with a ball instead of a puck). I do this in a futile attempt to reassure myself that I am in the same age and physical condition as I was in college.

This puzzle started some years ago as a lunch-hour scribble on an office notepad of a list of words that could precede CHECK. I have no idea why I did this; I suppose it seemed like a good idea at the time. Much later, I tried pairing these up until a promising puzzle idea emerged. The 15-letter entries were a pleasant surprise, but were by no means a seed for the puzzle. Many puzzles with this theme type don't lend themselves to longer answers, so this was a nice bonus. After many, many versions and revisions, what you see finally came into being.

Although I have a personal preference against Roman numerals in puzzles, I unfortunately ended up including one in there anyway. It just proves what an art it is to construct smoothly, and how much I have yet to learn!

Having been on the solving side of the cruciverbal community for quite a while, it was nice to try my hand at construction. Believe me, it is a completely different perspective. The next time you have some difficulty with a particularly frustrating puzzle, try crafting your own to fully appreciate the process. This was a rather challenging grid design to work with for my level of experience, and in retrospect, perhaps some alternative designs may have worked more effectively. Live and learn!

– puzzle by Howard Barkin

Hello fellow xword(info)ers. Glad to make your acquaintance. I hope today's offering didn't rough you up too badly. =)

The direct inspiration for this puzzle was David Pringle's 2005 NYT April Fool's Day puzzle, but I'm sure other constructors' work seeped into my brain cells without my knowing. (Despite some similarities, this puzzle's conception dates before Mr. Steinberg's ERASE R'S puzzle.) My intent was to create a metaphorical yin to Mr. Pringle's yang: instead of using black squares posing as white squares, I would use white squares masquerading as black squares. The Rolling Stones hit "Paint It Black" seemed like a rockin' way to execute this idea.

To successfully pull off the illusion, I would need to make solvers think the newly "added" black squares could actually be black squares. This forced some immediate restrictions: (1) theme answers could not occupy rows/columns 1, 2, 3, 13, 14, or 15 and (2) theme answers needed to have the word "IT" preceded and followed by at least 3 letters. Furthermore, I knew that repeating the letter string "IT"/"TI" in any entry other than the theme entries would be confusing/inelegant, and thus made it a priority to avoid such.

After I had found a nice collection of theme answers and tried placing some, I soon discovered that placing all themers in the across direction severely limited *real* black square placement in the grid's center. Since my revealer was a devious length of 12 letters, I needed as much flexibility in black square placement as I could get. Hence, the pinwheel arrangement.

Filling the NW/SE center portions of the grid was also fairly tricky, but, once they went down, I was sure the puzzle would make it.

Fare thee well for now, brave solvers. But, beware the perilous puzzles that lie ahead! [insert evil laugh]

– puzzle by David Phillips

The idea for this puzzle came from one of my favorite clues that I originally used in a themeless puzzle — "Subway line" (answer EAT FRESH.) I also had a similar clue waiting to be used in a puzzle — "Finish line" (answer THAT'S ALL FOLKS.) So I decided to try to find more of these and weave them into a Sunday crossword. What resulted were the ten theme entries you see in "What's My Line?" Sometimes clues are a good source for theme ideas I find. For example I once did a puzzle on diets, because there were so many clever ways to clue that word, e.g. middle management (diet for a white collar exec?), lessen plan (diet for a teacher), etc.

It's always a challenge to fill the puzzle smoothly when you have more than 8 theme entries (I usually like to have 9 or more in my Sunday puzzles because I think the theme entries are the most fun for solvers to fill in and the most fun for me to construct and clue). In this puzzle the toughest part was have two pair of theme entries side by side in the upper right and lower left.

Some particularly tough areas to fill in were in the upper left corner… I chose to add a cheater black box in the corner rather than present the solver with some crosswordese. I had to come up with THROW TO (a new entry I believe) in order to finish that corner. In the lower left I had some back and forth with Will about the entry FARFEL. I remember FARFEL as a famous ventriloquist's (Jimmy Nelson) dog who appeared in a memorable commercial for Nestles Chocolate. (It's also a pasta found in Jewish chicken soup.) Will wanted me to consider another entry but any I could think of would have changed 94A STOLE to STELE, a much inferior fill in my opinion. These are the decisions constructors have to make all the time and editors have to rule on. My favorite fills were DOOZIES, SCHEDULE A, PRMEN, FARFEL, RIPPEDOFF, CHUNNEL, OHWELL, and INTHERE. These are not seen too often in puzzles. I also enjoyed cluing ITGO by referencing Travolta's made-up "Adele Dazeem" (sorry it didn't make it past the editor's desk).

This is my 101st published NY Times crossword, most of which were edited by Will. Much appreciation to him for editing my work and making my puzzles better.

– puzzle by Randolph Ross

This puzzle was quite literally a labor of love because it originated as a present for my mom! She's an avid quilter, and this was the best quilting-related theme I could think of. In fact, for a while I had QUILTS at 27-Across instead of GUILTY (with QATAR at 27-Down), but I decided that QUILTS was not worth the price of SDS at 28-Down. Some other theme answers I considered were BA(THREAD)ING and YOUCAN(TWINE)MALL.

This was the first time I constructed after my debut came out last November, so I made a big effort to adapt to the critiques of that puzzle. First, many had said that the debut would have benefitted from a revealer, so for this puzzle I started with a revealer and built the rest around it. Secondly, many thought the debut's non-theme fill was clean but boring. Therefore, for this puzzle, I decided to allow a few less-than-desirable entries such as LGA, NCR, and ASTI in order to accommodate a few more exciting entries like TRYHARDS, LOSE-LOSE, and SPARKLER.

The grid was tough to fill because it was my first attempt at more than four theme answers and because the Q of STRING QUARTET had to sit inconveniently in the center of the grid. I'm glad the theme necessitated five components because otherwise I would have been tempted to trim down the theme in order to make the filling easier.

When I realized this puzzle could be a pangram, I got pretty excited. However, after reading many crossword blog posts that were decidedly anti-pangram, I realized that including every letter of the alphabet does not increase the solver's enjoyment. Therefore, I gave up the pangram idea, and that certainly improved the puzzle because it brought the word count down from 78 to 76 and removed the need for some cheater squares.

Merry Christmas again, Mom!

– puzzle by Tom McCoy