47: does it spark joy?

i'm back :) starting small with a 7x7 (a mali, if you will). happy solving!

construction notes (warning: spoilers)

not too much to say on this one. after picking the grid shape, i seeded with 9A for its common letters and helpful terminal S in the 5D slot. then i let crossfire do its thing and went with the first fill i saw that i liked (though i changed BOOSTER/SEERS to BOOSTED/SEEDS to avoid duping SEE). favorite clue is 6D, a fun little tidbit i found while browsing APOLLO's wikipedia page for an interesting cluing angle.

other stuff

for those who haven't seen: i had couple of themelesses published in the NYT over the past couple months! my debut ran in march, and my second puzzle ran this past weekend.

outside of crosswords: in january i moved from connecticut to north carolina and started my first long-term full-time job, so that's been interesting/exciting. i was nervous about moving---i didn't really know anyone down here, and i'm generally a pretty shy, avoidant person, so i was afraid i was gonna end up isolating myself and being miserable. but i'm happy to report that that did not happen! i've also started doing some things i've wanted to do for a while but was too socially anxious to do, like going to local punk shows. so, been doing pretty good on the whole, i'd say.

i've been trying to get back to making crosswords for months now, but... idk. it's been a struggle. i wish i could say it's just because i have less free time than before, but i don't think that's it at all. lately, nothing i construct seems good enough. a lot of entries that i once scored highly in my wordlist now just annoy me. any slightly gluey bit of short fill becomes a puzzle-killer. trying to make a cool grid feels like an exercise in frustration instead of the fun challenge it used to be. my philosophy of "every puzzle i make should be better than the last one" used to help me grow as a constructor, but now it's paralyzing me.

so i'm gonna try to take a step back and just make some grids without worrying so much about whether they're ultra-sparkly or technically impressive or whatever. maybe not all of the long entries sizzle. that's okay! maybe there's a dab of glue here and there. that's okay too! the puzzle will still be fun and worth making.

anyway, hope you enjoyed this one, and hoping to have more coming soon. have a nice weekend :)