constructing cruciverbs

It may not seem like fun to many, but I enjoy solving crosswords. The past few days were huge, satisfying servings of left-brain candy as I kept myself busy composing my own puzzles.

My screen shot of Puzzle #1.

Yup, I made my own cruciverbs. I'm not aware of what software to use for this sort of thing, so I drafted them in Excel.

I got my cue from Sandra Bullock's character in All About Steve. I wasn't able to see it at the cinema when it was released last year, but I lately managed to stumble onto it while flipping channels.

Image from here.

Sandy plays the quirky, goofy, hyper-intelligent Mary, who falls obsessively in love with Steve (played by the gorgeous Bradley Cooper). She follows him around and pursues a chain of unfortunate but humorous events that make up a romantic comedy.

Cute storyline aside, Mary is the local paper's cruciverbalist. I watched her manually pen her words into a grid and thought, "Hey, I can do that!" I recalled that I'd previously took a shot at construction using shorter words, and that I had a good, geeky time of it; I then became pretty confident I could make semi-professional / print-worthy puzzles.

Now I don't really need to get a job at the local paper, but I could do it for my own personal fun. ^_^


I've come up with two 15 x 15 themed ones so far; maybe I should get someone to test them. If they turn out to be as good as I think they are, I could perhaps share them with other puzzlers and/or send them to some publication.