Puzzle 166: Freestyle 134. Don’t take that tone with me!

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.49

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I had a traditional approach to this grid, in that my seed entries were on the edges (1-Across, 63-Across, and, to a lesser degree, 34-Down… for the upper right, I just sorta had to work with what I got from the upper left). It’s unusual for me to work from the edges, but I had a reason this time — I had the two eight-letter seeds, but I didn’t want to do another 8-stack grid. So I did an 8-9-9. As for the seed at 63-Across (this isn’t giving anything away, so don’t worry), you might think that I made that a seed because I might be a “Game of Thrones” fan… but, no, I actually haven’t even seen one minute of one episode of that show. I chose it because I heard it in an “SNL” sketch.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 165: Freestyle 133. It’s worth taking a shot.

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.37

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So I wanted to stack 11’s, but I didn’t want the normal three on the top and three on the bottom. I thus came up with this unusual design you’ll see. I very briefly considered stacking three 11’s where they are now, but I started to do it and decided that it would be pretty ugly and/or unwieldy (fill-wise). So I quickly abandoned that idea. The goal, then, became drawing four 11’s straight from my seed list and stacking them in twos like you see here. I did accomplish that. After a bit of trial and error, I found two pairs of 11’s that each stacked well and went with them.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 164: Freestyle 132. Raise your hands in the air like you just don’t care.

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.54

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A true triple stack! Everything came from 17-Across this time. Whether I’m on the bottom or on the top of the grid, I find that it’s ideal to work from the bottom of the stack to the top of the stack (or from the right side to the left side). Sometimes I start in the middle, but I find that whenever I seed the top of a stack and work downward (or the leftmost side of a stack and work toward the right), I have a harder time building a stack successfully. Both stacks in this grid, in fact, are prime examples of this — I started with the bottom entry of the bottom stack, too, and built upward. Obviously, the second stack you build in a grid is going to be harder to construct than the first, because you conform the blocks to the first stack to make that stack work and you have to conform the second stack to the block configuration you’ve already formed.

Also, there’s an entry in there that might be a little green paint-y… I don’t know, I’ve definitely used it, and I’ve definitely heard others use it, and I can find examples on Google. (“Green paint” is cruciverbalese for an entry, usually a phrase, that may not quite be in the language, but it is a definite phrase that people use. It’s on the brink of solid validity, but there might be some debate to it. Entries like DRIVES A CAR or QUICK DINNER are examples of “green paint”.) I think it’s obvious what entry I mean, but I guess you can be the judge.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 163: Freestyle 130. What are we all coming to?

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.49

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I tried to fit one seed list entry into each corner in this grid. It didn’t work out that way, though. The seed just didn’t work out in the upper left. Not that I’m at all unhappy with how it came out… I just wasn’t able to get what I wanted in that corner. I did make up for it by adding one at 20-Across, though. You can clearly see with the multitude of helper squares (three pairs… oh no!) that I was rather focused on getting rid of bad short fill.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 162: Freestyle 130. Time to get your hands dirty.

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 68
Mean word length: 5.56

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The first thing you’ll see when you open this grid, probably, is the stack in the middle (well, actually, it’ll almost certainly be the first thing, since I mentioned it), but the three 15-letter “spines” intersecting the stack were not originally planned. In fact, I was pretty far into the construction of this grid before I even considered any 15s, never mind three of them. Originally, I had two six-block “pyramids” on the left and right sides to block out any vertical 15s, until I considered the letter patterns to see if any 15s would fit. Luckily, there were a couple of good options (and you usually only need one) for each fifteen, and hence I opened it up. That’s why it’s a 68 — with the stack in the middle and the three fifteens running down the grid, 68 was pretty much the highest I could go.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 161: Freestyle 129. You can lead a man to Congress, but you can’t make him think. (Thanks Mr. 26-Across!)

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.31

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So I wanted to have two 11-letter seeds, but I wanted to resist the urge to stack them. What I also wanted to do is get a new perspective on a grid by making the long stacks vertical instead of horizontal. Does it really make a difference? Well, no, but sometimes looking at things (literally) a different way makes for a positive creative process. The grid may look a little unusual (well, to me, anyways), but the construction went down much more smoothly for me this time.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 160: Freestyle 128. Despite what you think, I’m not out to get you.

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Get the PUZ here!

Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.37

Have something you wanna say? Got a question? Want to do a guest freestyle? Want to collaborate on a freestyle? Want to just say hello? Hit me up by email!

I was very stoked to read a few days prior to this post about the return to active puzzling of The Grid Kid, Sam Ezersky! He is one of my faves in the indie world (not to mention that we did this collab on his and my website)!  Go and do this freestyle… it has his signature all over the grid and clues (trust me, that’s a great thing). And when you’re done with that, go back and cover all his old puzzles if you haven’t done them already, and go back there every Monday!

So my primary seeds were 18-Across and 37-Down for this one. 18-Across because… well, if you know me (and trust me if you don’t know me), I am a pretty avid (not bad, but not stellar) golfer, and 37-Across because I like to read aircraft accident reports now and again (though a lot of it is beyond my understanding — or, should I say, punnily speaking, over my head) and I like to encounter words for things that I often see but didn’t know there were words for. Well, also, 58-Across was a starter for this grid. Oh, and two helper squares in one corner? I know, I know. Some people may care, but I don’t really.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 159: Freestyle 127.

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.51

Have something you wanna say? Got a question? Want to do a guest freestyle? Want to collaborate on a freestyle? Want to just say hello? Hit me up by email!

Before I even had an idea of what this grid would look like, I knew I wanted to start this one with 13- or 15-letter seed entries intersecting at the middle letter. So I combed through the trusty seed list and found these two. Usually, when I run these types of grids, I like 8-stacks with them (i.e. the stacks end/begin with the first three/last three letters of the central answers)… I don’t know why, I guess I just find it easier to build stacks from terminal letters or starting letters. But, this time, I didn’t do that — for reasons you will discover, I just found it easier to construct if I moved the stack-ending blocks one column over to make 9-stacks horizontally intersecting the vertical seed entry. (Plus, that move enabled me to use a 9-letter seed list entry.)

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 158: Freestyle 126. Showing a little bit of character.

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.31

Have something you wanna say? Got a question? Want to do a guest freestyle? Want to collaborate on a freestyle? Want to just say hello? Hit me up by email!

Obviously, everything started with the two related stacked entries at 1- and 14-Across. The whole grid took shape from those two entries’ being stacked on top of each other. It led to the lengths of 6- and 7-Down, which basically forced the structure of the entire rest of the grid. I normally don’t like to include entries like 19-Across, but I found an interesting tidbit about it. I don’t like to think that good or interesting clues can “save” bad entries, but at least we can learn something, right?

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 157: Freestyle 125. If you want something done right, do it yourself.

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Get the PUZ here!

Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.54

Have something you wanna say? Got a question? Want to do a guest freestyle? Want to collaborate on a freestyle? Want to just say hello? Hit me up by email!

As you might have been able to tell by looking, I initially tried to do a staggered stack of five long entries in the center like I did in this puzzle a while back. Obviously, it wasn’t successful, though. That one came through ridiculously easily for me — I got pretty lucky there. This one, not so much. I started with the two that would have been on the bottom of the megastack — what’s now 35- and 42-Across — and tried to build up from there. It wasn’t working too well. I liked the stack of 35- and 42-Across, though, so I decided to keep it and block the center of the middle row.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

As always, share this link! Pass it around! New puzzle on Tuesday!