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

This one’s probably not as hard as usual, as I originally made it to submit to a mainstream market. Have at it!

Tough as Nails Themeless #120 – Across Lite

Today’s seed was 20D. Hope you enjoy!

Tough as Nails Themeless #119 – Across Lite

Stay cool! Here’s a themeless.

Tough as Nails Themeless #118 – Across Lite

Happy Wednesday! Here’s a puzzle.

Tough as Nails Themeless #117 – Across Lite

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

Shouldn’t be too hard to figure out what my seed was. Happy Pride!

Tough as Nails Themeless #115 – Across Lite

I’m back from a fun if not-so-relaxing vacation in Spain. Here’s a puzzle!

Also, for those who follow #crypticclueaday on Twitter, that will be moving to Instagram starting (most likely) on Friday of this week. Follow me on Instagram to keep getting your clue fix.

Tough as Nails Themeless #114 – Across Lite

This puzzle was rejected and I still think it’s very good! The seed entry, 65A, is very on-brand for me, at least in terms of things I watch and not things I do. (I CANNOT do what 65A do!)

Tough as Nails Themeless #113 – Across Lite

The genesis of this puzzle is a conversation I had with the lovely Matt Gritzmacher at Crossword Con, in which he mentioned that he’s noticed my shift away from heavy fashion, art, and classical music-based trivia toward more wordplay and accessibility on Tough as Nails. It’s true, I have; I’ve had a bit of a mind shift about how I want people to find themelesses hard, and I no longer feel the need to be, all, “Here is somebody amazing whom I bet you haven’t heard of!” in my puzzles.

But…I decided on the basis of that conversation that it’s been too long since I did that, so here is somebody amazing whom I bet you haven’t heard of. Enjoy!

Also, watch Matt, ACPT god Tyler Hinman, 2024 ACPT champ Paolo Pasco, and me talk speed solving here if you haven’t already.

Tough as Nails Themeless #112 – Across Lite