Puzzle 159: Freestyle 127.

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.51

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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.)

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

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Get the PUZ here!

Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.31

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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?

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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

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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?

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Puzzle 156: Freestyle 124. How can I keep from singing?

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Get the PUZ here!

Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.33

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So, as I mentioned in the previous post, I got back from Paris recently to this post. You can see that in this grid as evidenced in 16-Across, which was the seed entry, and in the clue at 22-Across. I worked from that corner clockwise to finish the grid. I started a seed list pretty much from the day that I launched this site, and the entry 39-Down was one of the very first that I put in that list. In other words, it’s been sitting there for about a year and a half. For one reason or another, I didn’t manage to put it into a grid. Well, now, it’s finally sitting there in all its glory.

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 155: Freestyle 123. A real head-turner.

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Get the PUZ here!

Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.36

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So… I was on my way to, in, and on my way from Paris (France, not Texas) when I finished this grid and clued it. (Don’t worry, I wasn’t looking down at my phone while walking around the Louvre.) It was the upper left corner that was giving me the most trouble, but I figured out that I was doing it all wrong. At the point that I was working on that section, the middle section was unfilled too. I was trying to construct the upper left, and I was getting stacks that worked; however, it just wouldn’t work out in the middle (I’d already established the center answer, of course). But, like an idiot, I kept working on the 11-stack and trying to work into the middle. And it kept getting held up by an unworkable middle. It all broke through for me, unsurprisingly, when I decided to work from the middle and out to the corner. What a surprise… it worked almost immediately!

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 154: Freestyle 122. I’ll let you handle this.

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Get the PUZ here!

Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.39

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!

When I do these grids with four 7×7 quadrants, my goal is to have ideally at least three, minimum two snappy entries in each quadrant. I have definitely fulfilled that goal in this grid. You often see constructors go for pangrams in grids like these, but I have never been one to shoot for that. Given a choice that doesn’t affect fill adversely, I will always go for the more unusual letter, but I will never force an unusual letter into a grid just for the sake of having an unusual letter or having a pangram.

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 153: Freestyle 121. It’s just one thing after another.

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.44

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!

Again I say I hate the 11-stack, and again I come back to it. At least it’s 10-11-11 and not 11-11-11, but that basically forces the constructor into a lot of 3’s. But that’s OK — I was able to stack two seed list entries (51-Across and 55-Across) in one corner and put another (15-Across) in the other corner. I never start with stacks of more than 6 letters vertically intersecting long (8+ letters) stacks, but it worked out better to extend 11/12/13-Down to 7-letters with the horizontal stack I came up with.

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 152: Freestyle 120. An eye for an eye just makes the whole world blind.

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Get the PUZ here!

Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.39

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, the seed for this whole grid was at 6-Across. I couldn’t not put that in a grid.  (Well, actually, it was the combination of 6-Across and 18-Across.) Strangely enough, the block pattern you see in this grid is the one I started with… but I started with it, formed the upper right stack, changed the the stairstep blocks around, switched them every which way, everything to make it work. I ended up actually coming back to the original design… thanks to the head-slapping epiphany that I could use 20-Across and it’d actually work.

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 151: Freestyle 119. Drop it like it’s hot.

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Get the PUZ here!

Word count: 68
Mean word length: 5.47

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I love words and phrases that describe things that I either didn’t know there were words for or describe common concepts in neat little packages. 15-Across is such an entry, and it was the genesis for this grid. (You probably might have guessed that even if I hadn’t told you anyway.) Since it’s a 14-letter entry, and I normally hate including 14-letter entries in ordinary grids, here comes another 12-13-14 stack! This is also why I dropped down to 68 words for this one. I’m not normally one for aesthetics, but 12-13-14 stacks at the top and bottom make for a pretty cool-looking block pattern, if you ask me.

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 150: Freestyle 118. Time is on your side.

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Get the PUZ here!

Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.44

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’ve only had to do something I did with this puzzle a couple of times so far during this website’s run: change a corner as I was preparing to finalize the documents for publishing. I check for dupes before I start cluing a grid every time, but, as one last check, I always double-check before I form the PUZ and PDF. This time, when I did that, I noticed a dupe that I didn’t even think of as one the first time around… not only that, but the two answers containing the dupes were stacked one on top of the other! It was a head-shaker, but that’s why I double-check. It was a slight pain, because I then had to rework a section of grid and rewrite a dozen or so clues well after I thought I was done. Luckily, the new corner came together in a short amount of time.

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 Friday!