I’ve been doing the NY Times crossword puzzle daily for about 15 years. Even when I am traveling in another country, I will find it in the International Herald Tribune. I have to finish it every day. However, it’s more than just a compulsion: it’s a great escape for me…..it’s almost meditative: it’s probably the one time during the day when I’m not anxious about anything (except maybe finishing, but that’s different…..). Some people time themselves – hard for me to imagine. Why would I want to rush through something I enjoy so much?For those of you unfamiliar with this obsession, the puzzle starts out being fairly easy on Monday and progresses through the week, getting harder each day. There is a common misconception that the Sunday puzzle is the most difficult, but actually it is simply the biggest. The reigning king of the crossword is Will Shortz, who has edited the NY Times puzzle since 1993. Shortz designed his own college major in "Enigmatology". Clearly the right man for the job.
On a day when I solve a particularly difficult puzzle, I have been known to scrawl “genius!” across the top of the page. I once confessed this to a puzzler friend of mine, who laughed and admitted she did the same thing….we are a bunch of odd ducks. We are in good company, though – some others in this cult include Bill Clinton, John Stewart, and Bob Dole.
Recently I decided to take it to the next level – no, I’m not going to go to the annual tournament and compete – I’ve decided to attempt to construct a puzzle. I had been using a Scrabble board, but I recently discovered that an Excel spread sheet works much better.
So yesterday I began in earnest to construct a 15 square by 15 square puzzle. There is a website for puzzle constructors called Cruciverb (www.cruciverb.com) , where I was able to find all the rules and standards: no two letter words, no single "dangling" letters,etc. Writing the actual clues for the puzzle will be the icing on the cake, the easy part…right now the challenge is to juggle words and phrases into a coherent grid.
Of course now the problem is I can’t stop working on it. I get an elegant long string of words like “REARVIEWMIRROR” only to have it fall apart when I try to intersect the last two “down” words through it. It’s very hard to let go of something as clever as “AVOIDCACTI”, but eventually it must be done. Letting go……yet another lesson in letting go. It’s a lot like when a corner of a painting is working perfectly but nothing else is, and I finally have to let go of that precious corner and work with the piece as a whole.
So yesterday I began in earnest to construct a 15 square by 15 square puzzle. There is a website for puzzle constructors called Cruciverb (www.cruciverb.com) , where I was able to find all the rules and standards: no two letter words, no single "dangling" letters,etc. Writing the actual clues for the puzzle will be the icing on the cake, the easy part…right now the challenge is to juggle words and phrases into a coherent grid.
Of course now the problem is I can’t stop working on it. I get an elegant long string of words like “REARVIEWMIRROR” only to have it fall apart when I try to intersect the last two “down” words through it. It’s very hard to let go of something as clever as “AVOIDCACTI”, but eventually it must be done. Letting go……yet another lesson in letting go. It’s a lot like when a corner of a painting is working perfectly but nothing else is, and I finally have to let go of that precious corner and work with the piece as a whole.
Okay, I have to get back to my puzzle now.
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