XWord Muggles Forum

It's not a meta, but I had a crossword published by Universal today! This is syndicated in several places, but the easiest place I've found to get it online is: http://syndication.andrewsmcmeel.com/puzzles/crosswords. It's one of the first puzzles I ever wrote, so it's nice to see it published. Maybe it's a fun Thursday distraction before the main event at 4.

The Fiend lists the Universal on her site under Today's Puzzles. Available in puz. I just printed it out.

Congratulations! Fun puzzle!

Very enjoyable. Thanks.

Fun puzzle, I liked the theme!

Nice! I don't think 62D is historically accurate, but I was focusing on the across clues in that corner.

Congratulations!. Enjoyed the theme. Thanks, Emma.
If you care to share, it would be interesting to hear about your experience with the submission - who, how long for acceptance, editing, and so forth. But only if you care to.

Excellent puzzle, congrats!

Congrats, Emma! Really loved the puzzle!

Great conversation starter. I am an accountant who knows the 57a. Loved this.

Richard B. wrote: ↑Thu Aug 13, 2020 1:34 pm Congratulations!. Enjoyed the theme. Thanks, Emma.
If you care to share, it would be interesting to hear about your experience with the submission - who, how long for acceptance, editing, and so forth. But only if you care to.

Sure! I submitted this to Universal back on February 12. David Steinberg responded in a couple weeks that Universal would publish it if I made a couple tweaks first to some awkward fill. I tweaked it a little (I also changed a couple of theme entries, spoilers if you haven't done it, but originally most of the entries used elements where the symbol was just the element's first two letters, which I thought wasn't as interesting as using SILVER and GOLD, although CANE still follows the easier pattern) and sent it back, and according to my email correspondence this actually happened two more times over the course of about three weeks, and then I submitted what ended up being the final grid about a week before the world caught fire. David suddenly became swamped with COVID-related stuff, and I didn't hear anything more from him until the end of May. So that was a depressing couple of months (although, let's be real, the abandoned crossword was the least of my worries), but then David got back to me on May 25 and said the most recent version of the grid was good and I could go ahead and write the clues. As an apology for keeping me waiting for two months (after several weeks of pretty regular correspondence) he moved it up in the publication order. Originally, it was going to be published June 26, but in trying to spread out puzzles with element-related themes it got pushed back to today. And ta da, here we are. It's been a while since I wrote the clues, but going through it today I think David edited/changed only 3-5 clues. He gets 100% of the credit for 40D though, which was my favorite clue in the puzzle. Universal pays $110 for each 15x15 puzzle, which I received via direct deposit at the beginning of this week, if anyone's curious about the pay structure.

So, that's the long version of the Universal submission process. This puzzle is much older than February of this year because I submitted it to the NYT last September and was rejected, and for some reason it seems to take editors a lot longer to send rejections than to send acceptances.

I LOVED the clue for 40d! I totally misinterpreted it, which was fun!

Nice puzzle, and nice backstory. Is this your newsprint debut?

Abide wrote: ↑Thu Aug 13, 2020 10:46 pm Is this your newsprint debut?

Yes!

I think they should have paid you more.

I just found this...fantastic puzzle, Emma! Congratulations!

This is a really really good crossword puzzle. I wanted more themers!

I'm just getting to this puzzle (traveling, other distractions). I'd like to do it, but when I click on the link, I get to the current day's Universal puzzle, and I don't offhand see how I can get back to the August 13 puzzle.

Help, anyone??

ChrisKochmanski wrote: ↑Sun Aug 30, 2020 5:13 pm I'm just getting to this puzzle (traveling, other distractions). I'd like to do it, but when I click on the link, I get to the current day's Universal puzzle, and I don't offhand see how I can get back to the August 13 puzzle.

Help, anyone??

I PMed a link to the PDF (which I had the good sense to download before the puzzle disappeared from the online app), but I don't have a .puz file for the final version. If anyone else does please let me know.

Here's the puz file (site maintained by Martin Herbach)

http://herbach.dnsalias.com/uc/uc200813.puz