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There's a somewhat common phenomenon in the crossworld where you receive the final copy of your puzzle about three weeks before it runs (usually about a year after you last saw the grid) and you can't help but be a bit… underwhelmed. After all, you've improved your crossword-making skills a lot in the last year, and the puzzle sitting in front of you might not be up to your current crossword standards.

Safe to say, that was not the case here! I think this puzzle holds up just as well as it did the day I wrote it. I started out with my clue/answer pair for GEOCENTRIST (did anyone try egocentrist?), and the hits never stopped! Clues like [She's so full of herself!] or the devilish [Out] popped into my head like flashes of lightning one after the other until I was staring at a completed grid.

P.S. I played PICKLEBALL for the first time (after giving it an admittedly unflattering clue) and decided it is simply more fun than tennis or ping pong. Screw the haters.

– puzzle by Spencer Leach

Hello again, friends! You can imagine me shouting 32A in jubilation when the acceptance email came through for this puzzle so soon after my first one had run — and they were published within two weeks of each other. What a thrill!

I was worried about turning 40 this year, but having that landmark birthday fall serendipitously between these two publishing dates helps me feel as if I'm experiencing my 51A instead. Cue the "DAD!" dance move from the "Bluey" theme song.

The inspiration for this puzzle came when I uttered the revealer phrase to my young daughters during one of their many ridiculous antics. The idea of blurting this phrase out when face-to-face with similarly unbelievable beings ran from there.

I appreciate the editors allowing me to sneak the rare and elusive second revealer in at 49D. I'm also grateful to them for helping me keep today's clues Monday-friendly. I fear my debut puzzle on July 24 may have given some solvers cause to grumble, as if I were, in fact, the token-thieving, toy-hogging claw machine depicted in that grid.

I want to thank you (yes, you, dear solver) for taking time to enjoy these funny little gridded pieces of my heart that the wonderful New York Times team helped me share. I appreciate you and hope that you enjoyed the solve.

– puzzle by Shaun Phillips

In my Constructor Notes over at the NYTimes today, I talked a bit about me and my constructing story. Here, I'm glad to have the room to add a little more.

Back in college, there was an annual, massive, 24-hour scavenger hunt. It was my junior year when I first joined in, and one of the items was that day's NYTimes crossword, completed correctly. None of us were crossword mavens (yet!), it was a Sunday in the waning years of the Maleska era, and looking up answers online wasn't a thing. After my team filled in what we could, we were still staring down a half-empty puzzle. As we considered what to do, we kept looking for other items from the list, one of which was an empty six-gallon bottle. A teammate had one, but full of cheap wine. So, we did the only logical thing. We set up on the steps of the campus's main green with the Sunday magazine, cracked open the bottle, and offered passers-by a Dixie cup of wine for each answer. Soon, the bottle was empty and the puzzle was full.

Like that scavenger hunt, creating this puzzle was a team effort for sure. Many of you reading have written these, so you know it's not supposed to be just a list of thanks. But I'm really struck by the generosity of the construction community, so I can't help myself. I started out on Eric Agard's Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory on Facebook. There, I found lots of great advice from helpful people, free Zoom intro sessions, and ultimately, my amazing mentor — the incomparable Matthew Stock.

I couldn't have made this puzzle without Jesse Goldberg's wonderful, free Crosserville, and Jesse is incredibly responsive and thoughtful about its development. Likewise, I use and and hugely appreciate Brooke Husic's and Enrique Henestroza Anguiano's free spread the word(list). Since joining the Crosscord Discord, I've gotten lots of smart input from folks there, too. The NYTimes team via Christina Iverson were great to work with, and helped shape the puzzle in multiple ways.

There's a theme here, and it's that the crossword construction community is remarkably supportive of new constructors, and I'm so appreciative.

(And yes, our team did win the scavenger hunt that year. And the next year, too.)

– puzzle by Stacey Yaruss McCullough