New York Times, Tuesday, February 14, 2017

I've been into crosswords for a few years. Before that, I was into word squares. At some point, my father wrote a simple crossword making program that let you enter words. I decided to add some more features.

For my 12th birthday, I asked for a better word list (the original one was just the Unix word list). I got what I asked for. Meanwhile, the program kept improving until the only hard part (if you were okay with doing some trial and error) became making sure that there was a minimal amount of crosswordese and obscure words, which my older sister and father helped with. (They also wrote most of the clues.)

I tried to submit a puzzle a week for a while. This was the eighth puzzle I submitted. Originally, I came up with the idea to have words with R's and L's turning into W's. When I told my father what I was doing, he told me that that was essentially how Elmer Fudd talked.

I got a list of common words with r and l in them and spent many evenings working before I had my theme answers. I originally had only QUACKOFDAWN, WHISKEYMOVE, WOWEDMOUTHS, SWATMACHINE, and ELMERFUDD in the middle. However, a center 9 puts a huge constraint on the grid and, although I tried very hard, the fill was simply terrible.

At some point, it occurred to me that adding a symmetrical theme partner to Elmer Fudd might make the construction easier! My best 9-letter word was TWEEHOUSE. Unfortunately, my original self-constraint was to have all the theme answers change their spelling beyond a simple letter substitution. Still, I hoped the theme answers were humorous enough to make people overlook this flaw. I didn't like that the middle section was a cut-off 3x3 section, but I couldn't find a different way to do it.

As for the fill, Will and Joel were unhappy with it in a few places. They made some much-needed improvements until it became the puzzle that is here today.

I'm thrilled to be making my debut in the New York Times!

Debut! Daniel breaks the record for youngest NYT constructor. What was I doing at age 13? Oh yes, still watching ELMER FUDD.

I spent hundreds of hours following the exploits of that wascally wabbit, so this puzzle brought me back. I particularly liked QUACK OF DAWN (from "crack of dawn"), as it hinted at Daffy Duck, another one of Fudd's usual targets. And SWAT MACHINE (from "slot machine") hinted at Wile E. Coyote's crazy contraptions! How cool would it have been if every themer related to Looney Tunes.

Using six themers is no joke, especially for a debut. Such a high theme density will almost always require some dabs of crossword glue to hold everything together. So I appreciated that I noticed very little as I solved. ON OR here, WYE there, some minor ERE, ATO, INS, but that was it. Nice craftsmanship to produce a smooth result.

And the big NE / SW corners! These roughly 6x4 chunks are so tough to fill with interesting and smooth material. I enjoyed that NE, what with MARINE and ESPRIT de corps, with just INS and an outdated SUPRA. The SW was even nicer, with so many evocative answers like SAMSON, SQUASH, AUSSIE, and MANTRA. Well done.

Not many extras in this puzzle; not a surprise because of the high theme density. But I liked AW GO ON, which looks so amusingly like AW, GOON. Seems like that should be a Looney Tunes title.

Love me some Harry Potter, so yay for the OWL clue, referencing Ordinary Wizarding Level exams.

Can't wait to see what my daughter's patronus is, BTW.

This lisp-ish concept has gotten somewhat overdone, and not many of the themers made me laugh. But I liked ELMER FUDD as a revealer, and I thought Dan did a great job executing his gridwork. If only there had been something extra, like all the themers chosen and clued to Looney Tunes, this might have been POW! material for this Road Runner junkie.