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In the hopes it helps new constructors like myself, I thought I would share my original grid for this puzzle and explain why it was rejected.

First, 41D (TCH) was a puzzle-killer. Using XWord Info, I knew that TCH had never been used in an NYT crossword, whereas its cousin TSK had been used many times. Since I use "Tch!" fairly frequently (as a dismissive noise), I just figured it was waiting for the right time! Will explained that it looks like a string of letters without a clear meaning. So: if you're going to use original short fill, stop and consider whether there's a reason it hasn't been used.

Second, some of the short fill wasn't particularly good: AVAS, LYN, SSA, and SMS (a plural name, an old name, and two S-heavy acronyms). Individually none of these are particularly offensive, but the more you pile up, the worse. The finished product still has some fill I would rather avoid, but I tried to make it more interesting.

Third, the grid design has issues. My inexperience with themeless puzzles shows. Ideally, the lone black squares in the northwest and southeast corners (which split potential 9-letter entries into two 4-letter entries) would be removed. In both versions, I did try many times to remove them, but I was never satisfied with my fill. (Which itself is a lesson; sometimes fill is more important than an ideal grid). The grid also has an excess of 3-letter entries, though that's a trade-off when you seed in 11-letter entries.

Fourth, a personal lesson: ditch your quirks. In the accepted puzzle, I intentionally avoided any two entries meeting at a pluralized "S," as I consider that merge to be an unofficial "cheater" square. Had I let myself ignore that rule that nobody else has to follow, I surely could have improved on the result.

– puzzle by Neil Padrick Wilson

After seeing a Kandinsky painting one day, I wondered if I could also build an abstract crossword "work of art" using shape/ color elements. I quickly settled on the idea of using entries that are not normally treated as colored elements to be re-interpreted literally as such. Although the finished ABSTRACT ART will probably never hang in a museum anywhere, I hope that it's fun to check out and solve nevertheless.

As a fun aside, I did come across this crossword museum piece recently however: 91-year-old woman fills in crossword at museum — only to discover it was a £60,000 artwork. Come to think of it; perhaps Will should start a crossword museum somewhere?!

With seven themers, it was a hard slog trying to get a clean fill, leading to numerous revisions in the "product development cycle" with Will and Sam, who were admirably patient with me. It was a good call from them not to settle though, to get to a more polished final product. With so much material already, I regrettably had to dispense with one of my comic book favorites: GREEN ARROW. Moving along in the DC Comics universe, we have instead actors KEATON [23A], and my favorite non-theme entry in the whole puzzle - GAL GADOT [2D/51D]. There's definitely some fanboy appreciation at work there...

The editing of the puzzle made clues generally tighter and better, though the original trickier clues for the theme entries (e.g. "American recorder?" for BLACKBOX and "Mark on a beach bum?" for TANLINE) were made more straightforward for a Tuesday audience.

Constructor's logs: Submitted Oct 2017, revised Feb 2018 after "liked the idea but needs changes," with acceptance in May subject to fill clean-up, and final version in July 2018 after numerous iterations.

– puzzle by Freddie Cheng

When I first started solving the Times crossword, I was fascinated by some of the stunt puzzles. I remember being amazed by the puzzles with no vowels except for ‘A', E', or ‘O', and making a mental note to my aspiring constructor self that ‘I' was still on the table. It turns out that this probably should have been a warning sign — that and the fact that any Scrabble player can attest to the abject horrors of a rack laden with I's.

Still, I was undeterred — until I tried grid layout after grid layout with no luck. Most of them wouldn't fill at all, let alone even remotely well. I began to accept that my odyssey was doomed to failure and set the puzzle aside. A few months later, I had the idea of using a grid layout similar to the one you see today. Though finding a suitable grid was half the battle, there was still the other half left to go. The process took much trial and error, and dupes seemed determined to do me in. Eventually, though, I managed to emerge (mostly) unscathed.

Overall, I'm really proud of how this puzzle turned out. There are a few more abbreviations than I would normally use, but I much prefer them to egregious obscurities, and feel they are more than offset by the good stuff here. In addition to longer fill like TIGHT-KNIT, MINISKI and "BRING IT!", I'm glad I was able to include the cross-referenced WII / FIT and GIN / SLING.

I also really like the vibe of the cluing here, and am pleased that most of my clues survived. I'm rather partial to those for 20-Across, 43-Across, 44-Across, and 47-Down, as well as the clue echo between 45-Across and 51-Across. I also included the clue for 39-Down to showcase the fact that I somehow managed to avoid having to use any random Roman numerals (but for some reason still felt compelled to reference one in the clues).

This puzzle has a special place in my heart, and I hope that it appeals to those of you who delight in this sort of thing, as I do. Happy solving!

(And by the way, for anyone who can't get enough of univocalic wordplay, Christian Bök's Eunoia is an excellent read.)

– puzzle by Trenton Charlson

JEFF SLUTZKY: I'm excited to be making my New York Times crossword debut; it's my first crossword anywhere! I first came up with this theme several years ago. I knew nothing about crossword constructing software or word-lookup programs at the time, so I tried to create the whole puzzle using graph paper, my pencil, and my brain. I didn't get far.

Then last March I met Derek Bowman at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. He's a veteran constructor, and when I told him I had a theme idea, he expressed interest in collaborating with me. He came up with a couple of new theme entries, as well as the great TORAH kicker at the end. One of our original entries — MENTOR AT WORK (clued as "Yoda or Mr. Miyagi, from 9 to 5?") — was nixed by the editors because it didn't significantly change the meaning of the base phrase, so we replaced it with CAPTOR IN HAND.

Derek was great to work with, and I learned a lot from him. I'm glad we were able to put this puzzle together!

DEREK BOWMAN: Jeff Slutzky had several ideas for theme entries that involved adding TOR to common phrases, and I found them to be very funny. (IT'S RAINING, MENTOR sadly ended up on the cutting room floor.) Together, we eventually narrowed it down to the theme entries listed in the grid, with some guidance from Will Shortz and Sam Ezersky.

Jeff has a great sense of humor, and I'm still amazed that he immediately identified the tune from Dear Evan Hansen that was lovingly redone at the ACPT talent show last year after hearing just a few notes. Jeff is a whiz at musicals, has a keen eye for detail, and was a lot of fun to work with on this puzzle.

– puzzle by Jeff Slutzky and Derek Bowman

I like crosswords that tell a story or describe a punny scene. Merl Reagle was the master of this kind of puzzle (as he was of so many things); I also really enjoyed Ross Trudeau's recent puzzle in this style that told the story of two people's quest, fraught with disagreement and indecision, to choose a board game to play. Today's puzzle doesn't reinvent the genre, but I hope it tickles the folks who enjoy such themes.

I was surprised that EID hadn't appeared in the Shortz era (and in previous appearances, it had never been clued as [Islamic festival] or similar), so I was pleased to be able to include it in this grid. I'm also glad I could debut the entry CISWOMEN. My original clue was [Ones whose gender identity corresponds to having been assigned female at birth]; the use of "females" as a noun has always skeeved me out a little, but I appreciate that the essence of the clue was unchanged. Thanks to the editors for accepting and running a puzzle with those entries.

– puzzle by Andy Kravis

My clearest memory from this puzzle construction is sitting in a hotel on a rainy day in Peru (March 2017) trying to think of theme entries. I had three, but the last two were just not coming. Compounding the problem was the fact that I was in Cusco, at over 11,000 feet elevation, and the reduced oxygen was crippling my 63-year-old brain. My Sudoku times were running 50% over normal.

I emailed pun zen master Erik Agard (gluttonforpun.blogspot.com) and begged him to come up with two more theme entries and co-construct it. He wrote back an hour later "Sorry, dude, my brain does not work that way, but good luck!" It took me several more hours (at sea level) to come up with those last two.

A big thanks to Will and his team for smoothing out the clues, and for leaving all my theme clues untouched when they HAD to have been tempted to change one or two of them. If I were asked to pick one puzzle that speaks to me as a constructor and puts out a vibe that I would like to be remembered for, this would probably be the one. Puns are not for everyone, but would I mind being labeled as an insufferable punster? Noh whey!

Hope solvers enjoy it.

– puzzle by Bruce Haight

I became interested in crosswords after trying to solve some with my wife's grandmother (shout out to Grandma Pat in Algona, Iowa!). When visiting her, we would sit around the kitchen table, drink coffee, and (try to) solve the crossword. Once I got the hang of solving, I felt that constructing would be a fun challenge. Thanks to the Will and Sam for coaching me through a few revisions of this puzzle and teaching me a lot along the way.

The idea for this puzzle was born out of a political theme I was trying to pull together. I was looking at last names of politicians that were homonyms (Bush, Gore, May, etc.) when I came to Martin Luther King Jr's name and reflected on "King" as part of a potential theme answer. I realized there were other prominent civil rights leaders whose last names shared the same characteristic. Sojourner Truth and Rosa Parks quickly followed. I hope solvers enjoy the theme and find it fitting for the day. We owe a large debt to the civil rights leaders of the past, and I hope this puzzle serves as a reminder that there is more progress to be made.

– puzzle by Sean Biggins

JEB: I tend to like crossword puzzles that use the diagonal adjacencies in the grid as part of the theme and solving process. This puzzle is no exception. Snakes have always been fascinating to me, but I must admit to being maybe a little overly cautious when hiking in poisonous snake country!

This puzzle seemed like it would be relatively easy to design/construct since the snake shapes could be arranged easily in many different configurations. I put the constraint of total symmetry into the initial mix, which made for a lot of time-consuming frustration! I was finally able to get four poisonous snakes, of reasonable length, to work out in the grid symmetrically using SIDEWINDER, COPPERHEAD, BUSHMASTER, and FER-DE-LANCE along with the central revealer WATCH YOUR STEP!

Although my first submittal to Will received positive attention for overall theme and design configuration, it was turned down because the supporting fill was too weak and the "bushmaster" and "fer-de-lance" entries were not well enough known to solvers. I eventually got a resubmittal version to work replacing those 2 snakes with KING COBRA and PUFF ADDER. (I was pretty much down to the end of poisonous snake possibilities without having the word "snake" appear in the themer!) When this resubmittal was rejected due to (again) relatively poor supporting fill quality, I knew I was going to need help in getting an acceptance. That's when I contacted my cross-town puzzle guru, Jeff Chen.

Jeff accepted the challenge right away and was instrumental in getting this puzzle in the acceptance column! His adjustments to the grid made a huge difference in opening up improved fill possibilities. Jeff also strategically asked Will whether having the snake shapes be symmetrical in the grid was necessary, and Will said "no". He and Joel hadn't even noticed that they were totally symmetrical! This got me off on a different tack which ultimately allowed the puzzle to be configured with all snakes either beginning or ending in the WATCH YOUR STEP! reveal. It also made the snakes look more snaky in their asymmetry, and less like a design pattern. Jeff's input and collaboration helped bail me out once again! ;-)

– puzzle by John E. Bennett and Jeff Chen

AMANDA: I was inspired by Ross Trudeau's note last week (and similar ones from other constructors I admire) to offer any assistance I can to those from underrepresented groups that are interested in crossword constructing. You can e-mail me at rosesmirror@gmail.com. I look forward to meeting you. Now on to the notes.

The female version of something often has the suffix "-ess," e.g., waiter and waitress, lion and lioness. With the recent movement to use more GENDER NEUTRAL words, e.g., "actor" for everyone across the board, it was a fun challenge to find words that ended in "-ess" that were NOT the female version of something, and then make them a "gender neutral" something.

Originally each of the theme entries was clued as a person or animal, like [Winged creature known for ramming objects with its head?] for FLYINGBUTTER, but the image of a piece of butter flying across the cafeteria is pretty funny. Many thanks to the editing team for improving the SW corner.

This theme idea came about two Thanksgivings ago in an eclectic Airbnb in Los Angeles with bunk beds and jazz posters a few blocks from a kosher grocery store. Not sure how or why that lead to this, but a change in scenery never hurts the creative process.

– puzzle by Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

I was thrilled a year ago to receive Will's acceptance of the goo goo eyes puzzle; especially, since Joel was kind enough to add in the email:

"We're happy to say yes on your GOO GOO EYES 15x, which has a cute concept and lively theme examples. You've done a nice job with keeping the fill clean and interesting as well, which will add to the overall fun of the puzzle. This one should be popular with our solvers."

When I received the link to the final manuscript from Jeff, I was surprised to find that 33 words had been changed prior to publication. I was curious as to what led to the decision to revise 40 percent of the ‘clean and interesting' fill, so I asked Will (Jeff: response below).

To the right are the two grids (my original is on the left).

I'm, of course, always happy to have a puzzle appear in the New York Times. Hope you were happy solving it.

– puzzle by Stu Ockman

When my last puzzle was published, I went onto the comments section of the Wordplay blog as I'm sure many new constructors do. I was pleasantly surprised at the positive responses from people — despite a few minor nitpicks, most people loved it!

However, there was one woman who seemed to hate my puzzle with a fiery passion. She insulted me directly, saying she had been doing the NYT puzzle for 60 or so years and was disgusted by what it had turned out to be. She slammed my use of "you know it or you don't" clues, implying I wasn't "man" enough to include clues based solely on wordplay alone. My response to her is, I'm sorry my puzzle made you feel that way. I genuinely am. Despite all that, I'm still proud of it.

I believe that the New York Times Crossword exists as a reflection of the English language — of how people speak in this day and age. I'm sorry if you wish there were more "scholarly" clues and words, with only dictionary definitions, but people in real life use slang and they talk about movies, and they use brand names. The crossword is a reflection of the world as it is. And it's always used clues that you either know or you don't! I don't know the names of obscure Czech composers or minor characters from "Leave it to Beaver." But I'm happy to find things I don't know and learn them! So you don't have to do my puzzle today, because yes, there's another video game reference in it. There are plenty of old puzzle compilation books from decades past that are still good. But if you're willing to give this puzzle a try, maybe you'll learn something about the things in my world!

I am very proud of today's puzzle. It's seemingly become a good-luck charm of mine to include a video game clue (like the classic 32-Across — how can you not say it in his voice?). I'm also proud of the pun clues sprinkled throughout, and the inclusion of what I think is the funniest food (31-Across. I don't know why). I made the grid, and the first thing my program suggested was that center circle in its entirety. I was astounded at how easy it was, and I just went from there.

– puzzle by Grant Thackray

This is my 49^th Sunday Times puzzle, and for the first time, I can say I had a glut of possible theme entries. Here are some of the other possibilities that didn't make the cut:

DEPARTED ACTOR, DEPRESSED DRY CLEANER, DEBUNKED CAMP COUNSELOR, DETESTED EXAMINER, DEBRIEFED LAWYER, DECOMPOSED SONGWRITER, DEFROCKED DRESSMAKER, DEPOSED MODEL, DISCHARGED SHOPPER, DISCOUNTED CENSUS TAKER, DISSOLVED PUZZLER, DISBARRED BALLERINA, DISCONCERTED MUSICIAN, DISINTERESTED BANKER.

I'm sure there are many more. I was inspired by a slightly related joke category: "Old___ never die, they just … e,g, "Old cashiers never die, they just check out."

I chose the seven in this puzzle because they each had adjectives that had to do with being fired or quitting. They also were dis- or de- adjectives (alternating) that have meanings unrelated to the profession, creating good wordplay. Of course, the parameter of matching word lengths for symmetry also went into the choices. Since these theme entries were on the long side I was restricted to seven; usually, I like eight or nine theme entries. The good news was that with seven theme entries I was able to have a lower word count: 134. This resulted in lots of longer fill entries involving some less common words and phrases.

A few particular entries helped me complete this grid. MCDLTS, with all its consonants, was a big help in that section... thank you McDonald's. RARE GEM, which has never appeared in a Times puzzle before, just came to me and helped complete a difficult area. This also was true of BRIGANTINE and CASEY KASEM, two unusual long entries that made the chunky bottom left corner fillable. BTW, BRIGANTINE is probably the etymological root of the term BRIG for a ship's prison. DIED ON also was an invented entry that helped me out of a difficult spot. I figured it was OK because I have had more than a few batteries die on me. Glad Will agreed.

– puzzle by Randolph Ross