Puzzle 62 - 15x15: Happy Halloween Themeless

eeeeEEErieeeee ... (check out this 1955 nyt puz)

Halloween and Thanksgiving are the best American holidays (says me) because they have the best weather and they're shared with other people. Except this year ... well, I suggest you read aloud "The Raven" and revel in the melodrama.

As for this puzzle, I've had one great Halloweeny answer for a while and just decided to make a themeless with it. A few answers in the grid are not so fun, but the 56-/57-Across pairing is, a little. The grid's shape has not so much connecitivity; also I keep failing not to cross proper nouns. As a novice I just don't have so much enough control over what happens... Anyhow. I hope today is a good Saturday for you.

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Puzzle 61 - 10x10: Hello, Hello

When I started making this puzzle, as often happens, I liked the shape but couldn't fill it cleanly. So I had to find and add entries that weren't in my wordlist before (I count five). This is as clean as I could get the grid without adding more black squares. It should be easy, but I recognize that there are crossing proper nouns.

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Puzzle 60 - 6x6

Back again. You know, I was way too hard on that puzzle I posted yesterday. Its grid was almost made to maximize four-letter answers, and of course there are relatively few of those.

Anyway, this is a puzzle that built itself.

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Puzzle 59 - 9x9

This puzzle shape, a very simple one, seemed like it should have been easy to fill with no crosswordese. But I found it impossible to keep out all the words that appear disproportionately to their real-world usage - especially once I locked in the long answers that I liked.

I count maybe five 4-letter words in this grid that aren't tired. The nature of crosswords is to reuse and reuse and reuse. Alas.

But don't let this discussion sour the puzzle, thank you.

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Puzzle 58 - 15x15 themeless

I love seeing full names in grids. This puzzle has three, all of 8 letters. And besides the two grid-spanners, they're the puzzle's most intentional entries. I think the crossings are fairish. Or inferable. I decided to give one anagram hint just in case.

Oh by the way I came up with this other thing (though "discovered" seems more apt a word). I'm going to try to write it in the style of the Brain Tickler in the print New York Times.

            Take each letter once from the phrase HORROR/THRILLER to form the name of a film director (3,4).

Puzzle 57 - 5x5

Hiya. I just voted. This is a tiny grid I've been sitting on a week or so because it was hard to write good clues for some of these kind of abstract things. I dunno.

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Puzzle 56 - 15x15 themeless

Hi again. Making this puzzle, I started out well, and was nearly done when I realized I accidentally duplicated, and crossed, a five-letter string in etymologically related words. Also there are two smaller duplicates, and at least one other in the clues. Oh well. I'm just writing this as a heads-up. Hope you enjoy.

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Puzzle 55 - 15x15: It's Not Happening

Hello. For this, I want to set your expectations so low you have to bend your knees to reach them.

I'll explain dramatically and at length. This grid, like the one I posted last week, has 72 words, which is a little low for a themed puzzle. But unlike last time, I've had major trouble filling it. I could have restarted, and I should have moved around black squares, but I wanted a challenge and it seemed doable. Sorry in advance.

Here are the issues. Because the computer filler couldn't help with the middle right section, I had to fill it by hand, and put in some partial phrases ... and a weird abbreviation ... and a plural name. It's ugly but it holds together. The bigger problem is near the bottom, where the theme answers overlap more; there are some crossing proper nouns that I regret, though most squares should be inferable (maybe not the one with French - there, you should look it up if you don't know).

You might think that (mild spoiler) the Scrabbliness of the words hurt the overall fill, and that's possible in the NW specifically, but putting in all these rare letters was actually pretty accidental. Oh, also there are some words duplicated in the grid. But that fits right in with the structurally compromised fill. And, the theme clues are a little wordy, and possibly nonsensical.

Nevertheless I like the puzzle. And since I don't have an editor, I hope you like it too.

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