ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PROGRAM: [Java]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ THEMELESS MONDAY]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
It was a dream come true.
Then came the cluing.
And it suddenly dawned on me (long after I had written 80% of the clues) that I had repeated two very long entries to get said too-good-to-be-true entry to work. It wasn't like small potatoes stuff like duplicating ATE and EAT. It was one 8- and one 9-letter entry repeated (okay, the longer one was plural). FML. Revision added hours onto the project. Yuck times infinity. This is the last time I'm going to just plunge into cluing with reviewing the grid first.
Or course, if I had a dollar for every time I promised myself I'd look over the grids with a fine-toothed comb before cluing the puzzle, well, I'd probably have upwards of $56. FML, indeed. (Wouldn't mind the $56, while we're at it.)
On the plus side, the miracle too-good-to-be-true entry provided me a seed for a future puzzle. (You were wondering why I didn't mention what the entry was, weren't ya?) So maybe the gods were smiling on me as well. There's just never enough good theme ideas.
Share the puzzle. New one on Wednesday.
Brendan Emmett Quigley creates custom-made puzzles for all occasions: birthdays and bar mitzvahs, anniversaries and retirements. You name it. Need a puzzle for your website or your publication? He can do that, too.
Brendan's custom work clients have included The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, BeerAdvocate, Boston Magazine, De Beers, The Decemberists, ESPN, The Improper Bostonian, Lollapuzzoola, McSweeney's, Phish, Reflexive, The Smithsonian Magazine, St. Martin's Press, Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, and Andrew Weil.
Call (617) 2-999-BEQ or click 
