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Solver, pencil (you guys are all perfect, eh?), and SF Chronicle late in the week + Saturday NYT.
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not perfect by any stretch.
howev, i have developed my own style of xword do-age that makes ink a generally safe bet, and makes my head have to work a little harder. -
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...so is it a secret personal method, or will you share it with your closest cruciverbalist friends? (us!)
E ;) -
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everyone i share this with thinks i'm nuts, but maybe you folks will understand. ;)
rule #1:
where you start, from there you must continue. no patches of words here and there.
rule #2:
no extraneous ink.
2a: no writing anything out around the xword. no practice patches above, below, around the grid, or on a piece of scratch paper.
2b: no writing in the grid the words that you think might work (even if you do so ever so faintly).
how i approach this:
i browse through the clues and find one that i know. i don't write the answer in, though, because i know that where i start, from there i must continue.
i keep the word in my head, and make sure i can answer enough of the connecting clues to get some good traction. if it seems a promising place to start, there i go. if not, i go back to the clues and find another one.
invariably, i find myself at a dead end, and i have to go half the grid away and hold a bunch of answers in my head, traveling back to the spot what done stuck me.
so that's how i do it. i almost never finish the nyt sunday xword in one sitting, but i kinda like stretching it out over a few days. -
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Well, I don't think you're nuts, but you certainly have a distinctive style.
I don't have any hard-and-fast rules... except don't look at the answers (if they are provided), don't look up anything in books or the internet (google), etc. If I can't finish, *then* I look up the answers, and say, "ahhh", "aha", "duh" or "weird" and hope to better next time.
Otherwise, I do use pencil, do write things in faintly when I'm not sure, allow myself to erase (but don't do it often), and I do make word clusters around the puzzle that I eventually connect together (except the early-week crosswords, which I can sometimes just fill right in from the upper left, but when they're that easy it's boring).
I also don't often finish the NYT (we get it on Saturday in the SF Chronicle, but I think maybe it's the NYT Sunday? Or is Saturday also a big NYT puzzle?) in one sitting or one day. Invariably when I leave it alone for a while and go back, I see things I just couldn't figure out before. -
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The NYT usually takes me a while too, but I always keep it to (try to) finish either on the train Monday morning or to work on again Sunday night.
Depending on the degree of difficulty in a puzzle I like to start at the beginning and just work my way through. In harder puzzles I will work out whatever clusters I can and build off of them.
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Wow Lisa. I'm impressed (not to mention a little bit weirded out; here I thought _I_ was obsessive).
Way to go!
I must admit that I do often feel that my (very infrequent) outside the margins test-scribbles are a form of cheating. As for the jumping about from place to place... well, I'm not gonna be able to abandon that anytime soon. Still, the fact that you don't do it is admirable.
And partials? Writing in parts of answers is pretty much part of my strategy. For example, if I know that a given answer will end in "s" (as most plurals will) then I put that in. I find that the more squares I have filled, the easier it is for me to "see" the rest of the answers.
But, with crosswords as with all things, to each her own!
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Solver - check
ink - of course (no liquid paper backup)
Will Shortz is the man!
everyday on muni on my way to school (SFState). Love the buildup to the weekend...if i get bored i start to work on the cryptoquiz.
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Oh My God! I found an actual tribe of "my people." Seriously! Most of these Tribe tribes are, well, "close, but no cigar." But, reading the posts associated with this tribe (and the "ink/Shortz" topic), I am just ecstatic!
Oh, and yes, solver, ink, shortz without a doubt. I don't leave home without at least one crossword puzzle in my bag -- in case I get stuck somewhere with a few moments to spare. Have done the "at home" crossword puzzle tourney 3x. Yep, I'm an addict. -
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Crossword Tournament
11/01There's an actual crossword puzzle convention and tournament each year -- spring time. For those of us who don't wish to fly to the eastern seaboard, there's an "at-home" version ... you don't win prizes, but you see how you would rank in comparison to the hard-core contestants.
There's time limits (self-applied) ... Most of the puzzles are fairly standard in a Will Shortz kind of way. Reagle supplies one or two. There's always 2 that are really challenging. You lose as many points for leaving squares blank as you do for incorrect entries. You gain points for finishing a puzzle in less time than allocated.
But, you find out how "pro" you are. Fun.
Want me to get the info for you? -
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Re: Crossword Tournament
04/13Solver/Bic Stic med. point/Black ink. LA Times M-F, NYT Sat. I feel so close to you people, it's making me misty eyed... -
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Re: Crossword Tournament
09/12Solver/ink/Shortz is the man M-S, + Sunday, but I also do the L.A. Times M-F. The latter is disarmingly easy, and, oddly, nearly always shares a word or two with Shortz. What's up with that, Trudy?
I've tried making several crosswords, but I think I'm trying waaaaay too hard. I'm, like, trying to make every answer relating to 18th century philosophy, and it gets a bit difficult. How do makers do it? -
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Unsu...
Re: Crossword Tournament
09/12They use computers nowadays and they generally have a whole team of researchers helping them out.
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Re: Crossword Tournament
09/13ive made one, wanna try it? its a little amateur, but it was pre-computer programs
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