Luke Vaughn author page
4 puzzles by Luke Vaughn
with Constructor comments
| S | A | C | K | J | E | E | R | S | C | R | U | B | ||
| H | E | H | E | O | G | L | E | C | A | U | S | E | ||
| A | S | I | N | I | A | M | B | U | R | B | A | N | ||
| G | O | L | D | E | N | D | O | O | D | L | E | |||
| S | P | E | A | K | R | U | P | E | E | S | ||||
| L | E | A | V | E | N | O | T | R | A | C | E | |||
| M | E | W | L | G | I | N | E | S | S | A | Y | |||
| U | M | A | C | O | D | D | L | E | D | E | R | E | ||
| F | A | I | R | Y | E | A | R | S | L | E | D | |||
| F | I | V | E | C | A | R | D | D | R | A | W | |||
| L | E | S | L | I | E | S | E | A | M | S | ||||
| C | O | M | E | D | Y | S | K | E | T | C | H | |||
| T | R | A | I | N | F | E | A | T | T | A | R | O | ||
| W | A | Y | N | E | E | M | M | A | E | R | I | E | ||
| O | P | E | D | S | R | O | S | Y | N | I | B | S |
I made this puzzle last year, and was asked to make it a little more Monday-friendly (PHAEDRA was the most obscure offender). I didn't get around to finishing up an edit until a few months later, and when I started writing clues, I realized a very similar puzzle had run just a few days before. I sent mine in anyway, and surprisingly it was accepted — I was told that my set was different enough, especially since it uses verbs instead of nouns. I'll take it!
Filling a Monday is a fun challenge. I did a lot of tinkering trying to make the completed grid as clean, yet interesting, as possible. Other than perhaps the quartet of ERE/EAR/ERR/ERIE, I think it looks pretty good.
| S | P | E | E | D | D | A | T | E | S | S | T | U | B | |
| H | E | A | V | E | N | S | E | N | T | A | W | R | Y | |
| O | N | R | E | T | A | I | N | E | R | L | I | N | E | |
| D | A | N | C | E | A | S | S | A | U | L | T | S | ||
| U | S | O | I | C | Y | H | O | T | ||||||
| O | V | E | R | T | O | Y | O | U | S | W | E | L | L | |
| M | O | V | I | E | F | A | N | R | Y | E | ||||
| I | L | I | E | D | P | H | D | S | L | A | D | E | ||
| T | V | S | E | M | P | H | A | T | I | C | ||||
| S | O | C | A | L | Z | A | C | H | A | R | I | A | H | |
| E | L | A | T | E | D | O | R | G | ||||||
| T | R | I | B | U | N | A | L | P | E | A | K | S | ||
| B | I | A | S | P | I | C | A | R | E | S | Q | U | E | |
| A | L | T | O | A | T | H | L | E | I | S | U | R | E | |
| G | L | E | N | C | H | E | A | P | S | E | A | T | S |
I'm pretty happy with how my first themeless came out. It looks to my eye to be quite clean, and there's a lot of weird stuff everywhere, which matches my weird brain.
The only entries I don't really like are UHS, which is an odd plural, and TWITTERATI, which I think is one portmanteau too many (ATHLEISURE was my seed entry).
I hope you enjoy all the crazy words I managed to jam into this thing!
| H | O | T | T | U | B | T | I | M | B | R | E | B | I | S | S | A | U | |||
| U | N | W | I | S | E | R | O | A | R | I | N | G | A | C | C | E | P | T | ||
| B | L | I | M | E | Y | I | N | R | A | N | G | E | S | E | R | A | P | E | ||
| B | I | T | E | O | R | B | I | T | S | L | I | B | E | R | A | L | ||||
| U | N | C | S | N | E | E | Z | E | I | E | S | T | P | D | T | |||||
| B | E | H | I | N | D | S | C | E | N | E | S | E | W | A | N | E | A | T | ||
| S | E | P | I | A | S | W | E | L | L | O | F | F | M | A | R | K | ||||
| J | U | G | H | E | A | D | S | E | R | E | O | C | E | L | O | T | ||||
| A | T | I | T | L | E | A | P | T | E | A | G | E | R | E | R | |||||
| F | I | N | A | L | E | M | E | R | E | F | O | V | E | A | V | E | T | |||
| A | C | U | R | A | O | U | T | O | F | B | L | U | E | S | L | O | T | H | ||
| R | A | P | B | R | E | S | T | S | U | E | D | S | T | A | C | H | E | |||
| B | E | E | R | T | A | P | S | T | A | C | K | M | A | Y | S | |||||
| L | I | S | B | O | N | X | R | A | Y | H | I | R | A | B | L | E | ||||
| P | O | P | Q | U | E | S | T | I | O | N | N | E | A | R | E | R | ||||
| N | W | A | F | E | A | R | A | G | A | I | N | S | T | G | R | A | I | N | ||
| A | R | K | F | I | L | M | V | E | N | T | I | S | M | M | I | |||||
| E | N | A | M | E | L | S | M | E | L | E | E | S | H | Y | P | E | ||||
| A | C | R | O | S | S | L | A | R | I | S | S | A | S | E | A | T | A | C | ||
| S | H | O | W | E | R | S | T | U | N | T | E | D | U | N | L | A | C | E | ||
| K | I | D | N | A | P | S | E | D | A | N | S | E | V | E | N | T | S |
I started constructing this puzzle with the nine theme answers arranged horizontally, but I couldn't get a good skeleton grid. Finally, I tried crossing four pairs of themers, and it worked out without me having to change any of them! I don't know what the probability of that is, but it seems pretty low.
When all theme answers run horizontally, a handful of fun long non-themers can run vertically. But because my themers run both ways, I kept all the fill to a maximum of seven letters. So instead of some shiny mid-length answers, I tried to keep the short answers non-ugly. ISERE crosses SERE, which I don't love. Other than that, the ones that bother me the most are IEST, RIN, SNEE, and RRN--er, MMI! (RRN means Random Roman Numeral.)
Anyway, I hope you find the puzzle as funny as I do. BEHIND scenes, get it?!?!
| A | A | M | E | D | A | R | C | S | M | S | G | S | ||
| C | R | A | V | E | B | O | L | T | O | P | E | L | ||
| R | E | N | E | E | O | N | A | O | R | T | L | E | A | |
| O | O | N | P | D | A | R | E | H | A | |||||
| F | L | I | C | E | R | R | M | O | S | D | E | F | ||
| T | E | X | A | O | L | D | E | M | O | R | O | |||
| O | W | E | P | A | R | T | W | I | X | |||||
| M | O | U | N | T | S | T | H | E | L | E | N | S | ||
| W | E | P | T | E | M | I | L | O | L | |||||
| E | T | A | A | L | E | Y | O | L | S | E | N | |||
| T | H | R | A | E | S | E | N | O | S | O | S | O | ||
| T | A | R | T | G | N | A | D | S | O | |||||
| W | A | I | N | G | A | O | R | E | T | R | A | E | S | |
| V | E | S | T | E | V | E | L | O | N | O | N | E | ||
| A | N | T | I | D | A | D | S | N | A | P | E | S |
Very proud to make my debut today! When I thought of this theme I instantly loved it (I still do) and I'm glad Will liked it enough to accept the puzzle despite it having 80 words and a couple sections of not-great fill. I don't like ESSENES next to NOOSES any more than the next guy (especially crossed by DSO and ONONE), but I'm somewhat okay with it because (a) I was unable to make it work with anything better; (b) I liked my clue for NOOSES; and (c) somewhere, someone is trying to cram [ASH]KENAZI into 50D.
The biggest change to my clues that Will made was taking out a lot of that sort of one-dimensional misdirection. For example, my clue for SL[ASH] was "Guns N' Roses rocker," for which the obvious answer is the 3-letter AXL. In one revision I had that at 59A and had [ASH]LEE at 60D with the clue "A Simpson sister," which would of course make the solver confidently enter the 4-letter LISA, reinforcing the incorrect L. I think that kind of misdirection is fun, but once the solver has grokked the theme, those clues might fall flat. My favorite clue that didn't make it — my favorite clue in my entire original submission, actually — was "Headed for the beach" for 62A (WASHING ASHORE). My favorite clues that did make it were 36A (PAR) and 42D (LOO).
My first passion is running, so I was happy that BOLT retained its Usain definition rather than being clued as the verb, and I was VERY happy (and surprised) that [ASH]TON was kept as Eaton (who lives in the same city as me) rather than Kutcher. I was also glad that RON's clue referenced Arrested Development, my favorite TV show.
Overall I'm not too [ASH]AMED of the final product since it's my debut. I hope to make a few more NYT-worthy puzzles and I'm sure the quality will improve with each one.