i got a puzzle published for the first time!!!
Hi! Spoilers below for my puzzle (NYT Friday, 2/2/24)! . . . . . . . . . . I'm so excited to have been published in the New York Times today! This puzzle was genuinely the first themeless I ever wrote, excluding this semi-themeless puzzle which I don't really count. So it's definitely a bit surprising that it got published, but it's a pleasant surprise. I'll go into some more details to expand upon what I said in the Wordplay article. As I mentioned there, my main seed was at 33A, which I had in my very short list called "themeless seeds????" in my "crossword ideas" note on the Notes app. I honestly don't remember how it made its way in there, but it may have had to do with this bit from Lemony Snicket in A Series of Unfortunate Events (it also appears in the book but I've watched the series much more recently than I read the books) (also, my original clue for 33A referenced that line, but it's definitely a niche reference). Anyw