Five by Five #10

HEY, IT'S STILL MONDAY, TECHNICALLY. And, you know what? This isn't "Mini Monday" anymore. It's "Five by Five." I cast off that temporal anchor three months ago! Get off my ass!! You're not my REAL mom!!! Etc, etc.

Paolo was kind enough to test solve this one (and even suggested a much better clue than what I originally had for one of these) so thank you, Paolo! I would remiss if I did not mention that he posted the 100th puzzle on his blog last week and that it is a total mindfuck, so please check it out. I think it will take you *slightly* longer than this five-by-five will, though. Just a guess. So maybe start with this one? Give it a go and tell me what you think.

Five by Five #9

Literally everyone liked my Inkubator puzzle, which was a very nice feeling! This reminds me I need to update the "Other Published Puzzles" page (or at the very least, import that over to my website, which is a thing that will I hope replace QVXwordz at some point). Anyway, here is a pretty straightforward 5x5. The gag here is pretty obvious, but what can I say, I prefer the mind to enter into a deeper state of calculation. Enjoy. New grid on Thursday with some "experimental" aspects, which you may or may not enjoy.

What's Up with Q?

I feel like it's been long enough that I've posted content on QVXwordz that I owe people an explanation for my seeming lack of activity here. I have, in fact, been making puzzles, and extremely good puzzles at that. (E.g., I have this week's Inkubator puzzle, a very slick 65-word themeless that kind of looks like a bug, and it is tricky and fun and full of cool entries that have literally never appeared in a mainstream puzzle before, so look out for that in your inbox.)

ONE. Let's start with the highlight of my August: Lollapuzzoola was in-person this year, which meant that I got to attend my first in-person crossword tournament. I cannot begin to describe what a joy it was to finally meet all the wonderful constructors I'd admired from afar for years. Even more incredibly, I somehow managed to come in eighth, which gets wilder when you consider that a) I had left two squares blank on puzzle 2, and that had I filled those in, I would be in fifth, and that b) my first time speedsolving with paper and pencil was on the train ride to Riverside that morning. Just bonkers. I placed above Al friggin' Sanders, for chrissakes:

 

Wowza. And then afterwards two dozen constructors got to hear me rap to De La Soul's "Me Myself and I" during bar trivia while drunk off my ass. A good time was had by all.

TWO. I have a new gig: I now write a weekly midi for a website called Crossword Club. Note that this is Crossword (singular) Club, a new e-mail-based service distinct from Crosswords (plural) Club, the weekly subscription service edited by Patti Varol. The puzzles for this site are being made by not just me, but by Kate Chin Park, Kelsey Dixon, Erica Hsiung Wojcik, and Will Nediger - an astonishingly talented lineup who have allowed me to get away with clues like this:

...for which I am eternally grateful. These puzzles, I should note, are markedly easier than the average QVXword, so if you're intimidated by my usual level of difficulty but enjoy my work despite that, this is definitely a site worth checking out.

THREE: Well, it's time to start posting content on QVXwordz again, ain't it? I think next week I'm going to start up the Monday 5x5s again, for real this time. I've actually had most of them ready to go for a while now, I just wasn't sure what the right time to post one would be. I don't think a puzzle every Thursday is realistic anymore, honestly, but I do have some grids I've been meaning to post.

I'm less sure I'm going to go back to writing the monthly crossworld recaps, though. Will Nediger's monthly posts have a fairly comprehensive list of good indie puzzles; Daily Crossword Links has a "News & Notes" section that puts my posts' recap of puzzle news to shame. Really, the unique things my posts have going for them are a) the long, long lists of weird things I learned doing puzzles, which are not necessarily of interest to people who are not me, and b) righteous negativity about puzzles that people put a lot of effort into.

Actually, I think some people *like* the righteous negativity in those posts. I don't, though. I don't enjoy being overly critical of indie constructors, or even mainstream ones.

FOUR: One thing I'm wondering about for 2023 is how to have puzzles serve as something like a full-time income stream for me. That's not as unrealistic as it sounds: I'm on track to make about $10,000 on puzzle stuff this year, and that's *without* actively sending out grids on spec. The dream would be to get hired by some mainstream outlet and not have to worry about freelance income at all - now *that* would be awesome. (If you, the reader of this post, are looking to launch a crossword outlet and want an experienced editor to run it, maybe you should get in touch with me!)

Failing that, though, I don't know - maybe I'll set up a Patreon? I don't want to paywall any of the content on QVXwordz, but I'm sure there are things I could do to incentivize donations without excluding the average Joe & Jane from the full QVX-perience. If there's anything you'd really like to see here, so much so that you'd be willing to pay for it, sound off in the comments.

Well, that's it for now - I think I'll have a puzzle ready for you all come Thursday, which will be *exciting* ! See you then.