ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ WHIPPING POSTS]
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]
PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ WHIPPING POSTS]
PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]
My promise to all of you out there: You can expect three free puzzles a week from me (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays), thoroughly modern, thoroughly enjoyable. Now we're all in this together here, so I expect each and every one of you who solve it to hit me back. All right, let's do this.
Since we're on the topic of starting off, you may ask me where do I start whilst making my puzzles? The theme, of course, which is the gimmick shared by all the long entries the grid. It's the distinguishing factor in the puzzle.
Now if you were to ask me where I get my theme ideas, that would be a much trickier question to answer.
Now I could say I have this moleskine notebook full of half-baked, fully-baked, and never-going-to-be-made ideas to develop later.
Or I could say I meet up with a group similar to The Algonquin Round Table where I can share witty bon mots and steal their best ideas into my work.
I could even say that by using sheer concentration and an unhealthy amount of peyote, I can stare at a blank grid and ideas just burst forth in a hallucinogenic nightmare.
The truth is it's really a combination of all those things and then some. Themes come from the complicated jumble we call “everyday life.” Themes pop out at me at the strangest and most unexpected times. They might come while I'm working out at the gym, or mishearing something someone said, or stumbling upon a piece of too-good-to-pass-up trivia. The basis for the theme for the puzzle posted above should be pretty obvious when you do it.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a vision quest to go on.
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 
