Total Words: 68
Black Squares: 49 Avg. Word Length: 5.18 Difficulty: High end of Tricky (3.5/5) Blog post after the puz. Trust me, I rambled. Remember - when nothing seems to go right, go left! I had made a promise to myself for 2021 to try and finally make a crossword puzzle, with my having more information about construction and places to host the puzzles. When I found myself stuck at home with my dad, as he and I were exposed to COVID-19 and eventually symptomatic, I found an opportunity to make a proper start after an incredibly awful test grid that I deleted shortly after I had made it. That first grid was the first of many 5x5 puzzles, all of varying quality with regards to fill and clues. After many, many "cluing practices" where I dropped a seed into a grid and saw what I could work with, then eventually choosing fill of my own, I started making larger puzzles - what is now the Sheydah and Menace series. I eventually shifted over from constructing on Crosshare to constructing on Crosserville (Crossfire is something I'm still getting used to) and later learned I could edit the word lists. It was after I tinkered with what word lists I used that I felt my puzzle quality improving. However, my passion was not with the fill, but with writing the clues. The emphasis was always to find a way to be just a little different - dry humor and tricky cluing became my preferred method, and something I wholly enjoyed. After a while, I was more comfortable with writing crosswords. During this time, I realized a few things had to change. I was looking to move out of my home of 30 years, get a new job, and try to live my life with more of a chance to be my own person. I was luckily invited, by someone who understood my situation and was sympathetic, to move in with him, his girlfriend, and a friend of theirs to North Dallas. Luckily, I snagged a brand new job in the area weeks before I was supposed to move. Since then, I was making more of an effort to live as a woman. A few months later, I would write a coming out letter directed towards my family in the form of a crossword previously featured here (Sheydah #9), but I've already brought up the story on that one. However, let's go back to July 21, 2021, when Erik Agard approached me to collaborate on the puzzle you're about to solve. Yes, the Erik Agard, crossword editor for USA Today, former Jeopardy champion, and frequent ego deflation device whenever I enter crossword tournaments. That Erik Agard. He approached me and I immediately freaked the hell out because someone I respected as a constructor and a fellow solver reached out to me, a novice. My roommates got the full brunt of the freak out, I'll say that much. While Erik suggested that the puzzle could be published in the USA Today archive or the New York Times and that we could get a lot more views, I told him I wasn't ready for that just yet, as I would be required to publish under a name I've admittedly grown tired of using outside of a strictly professional setting, and that I wasn't feeling confident yet with my own voice. Leave it to my coming out to my coworkers and to the GSA I co-sponsor to give me more confidence in being transgender, in having a voice, and feeling more ready to do crosswords for newspapers. What you solved above is the result of a month of back and forth, of trying to create something special, fun, and maybe a tad mean. Our voices might not have meshed entirely with this puzzle, but this particular experience has helped me with getting more comfortable with construction and developing my style. Erik, if you're reading this, I appreciate the opportunity and look forward to working with (and competing against) you in the future, should more chances arise.
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AuthorAriel Haymarket (they/them, she/her, it/its, e/em/eir) is an annoying anti-authoritarian leftist residing on stolen Kiikaapoi land. New grids every first and third Friday and every second and fourth Tuesday. Archives
December 2023
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