Scott Yut author page
1 puzzle by Scott Yut
with Constructor comments
See the 4 answer words debuted by Scott Yut.
| O | R | S | L | I | B | Y | A | W | I | R | E | D | ||
| N | E | T | I | M | O | U | T | E | N | E | R | O | ||
| T | A | R | B | A | N | K | L | E | N | D | I | N | G | |
| A | M | E | R | I | C | A | S | A | T | O | N | E | S | |
| P | S | E | U | D | O | G | O | O | ||||||
| T | R | O | P | I | C | A | L | F | R | U | I | T | ||
| Y | M | C | A | S | T | H | I | E | F | M | O | T | ||
| E | A | R | L | S | U | M | Z | A | N | Y | ||||
| A | Y | E | B | A | S | R | A | F | A | T | A | L | ||
| R | I | D | G | E | M | O | N | T | H | I | G | H | ||
| N | A | N | O | N | A | U | T | O | ||||||
| S | T | R | A | T | I | S | U | M | A | T | R | A | N | |
| S | H | O | W | S | O | M | E | L | E | G | M | R | E | |
| T | O | T | E | M | P | A | N | E | L | A | S | A | ||
| S | U | E | D | E | G | R | A | C | E | N | I | L |
This being my very first published crossword puzzle, I'm quite pleased about seeing it in print. I started constructing a few years ago after solving more and more puzzles. Thought I'd try my hand being on the other side. I started from ground zero, even submitting a few puzzles that didn't follow the basic rules of construction. Not a good move, but they were so much easier to build when I could make up the rules as I went along.
The theme for this puzzle came to me in a bit of a flash. I was standing on a curb as a friend was pulling up in a car to pick me up. Fooling around, I stuck my leg out and pretended to hitch up my skirt so as to get a lift as a hitchhiker. Because I had been reading Patrick O'Brian novels about Captain Jack Aubrey and the Royal Navy, "show a leg" popped into my head because it is a phrase that frequently appeared in those books. Back in that time period, gentlemen "showed a leg" when they stuck out a stockinged leg and bowed by way of introduction. I was looking for crossword themes at the time so whenever some odd phrase popped into my head, I bounced it around for crossword angles and fell upon "show some leg" and theme answers that had leg parts in them. When I hit upon RIDGEMONTHIGH, it felt like I might have something good.
The editors seemed to like the idea right from the get go, though not the initial theme execution. I am green at this stuff, so their comments were very welcome and very helpful. After a fair amount of back and forth, I finally got something that seemed to work pretty well. I was instructed to build for a Monday puzzle and was surprised to see it coming out as a Wednesday.