Author: Stella

Tough as Nails Themeless #121

~ Stella ~ 5 Comments

Exciting news: I have quit my day job! I’ve wanted to call myself a full-time constructor for a few years now. I’m not there yet, but this year I did the math and realized that a) I was closer than I thought and b) it’s just not sustainable any longer to be a staff writer at an ad agency when I’m chasing the dream. So here I am chasing the dream — if you need a puzzlemaker, please hire me! I’ve made puzzles for private clients about everything from instant coffee to tourism to educational apps.

And if you just want to solve this week’s themeless, you can do that too. Here it is!

Tough as Nails Themeless #121 – Across Lite

Tough as Nails Themeless #121 – PDFDownload
Tough as Nails Themeless #121 – SOLUTIONDownload

Tough as Nails Themeless #116

~ Stella ~ 1 Comment

This puzzle has an interesting (to me, anyway) history. Perhaps you’ve noticed that it’s been a while since I had a freestyle puzzle published anywhere other than this website. It’s only somewhat for lack of trying. I find that my idea of what makes an interesting puzzle doesn’t always line up with what the current crop of editors likes: The number one critique I get is that my 8s to 10s weren’t sparkly enough, and that they want to see more lively multi-word phrases. (IMO applying this metric consistently leads to things like I AM SO DEAD and OREO PIE being the Lake ERIE and ELIA Kazan of themeless puzzles, and that’s not my cup of tea.)

Anyway, I was determined to shove as many multi-word entries into this puzzle as I could, with the intent of submitting it somewhere. But when I was finished cluing it, I didn’t think the puzzle felt like me any more! So I set it aside and started over, and the market I had planned to submit this puzzle to got something different.

Fast-forward a month, and it’s time to upload this week’s website puzzle. I looked this one over again and realized that, with the cluing, I made it more “me” than I had thought. I did a couple more tweaks to Stella-fy it even more, and here she is. Enjoy!

Tough as Nails Themeless #116 – Across Lite

Tough as Nails Themeless #116 – PDFDownload
Tough as Nails Themeless #116 – SOLUTIONDownload