Puzzling

Wow, guys! What a great selection of cryptic clues you've sent in, I've really enjoyed reading all of them. I hope you've all had fun writing them too, and that you've got a bit of a taste for what cryptic clue writing entails  :) My good friend and colleague Greg Parker (he of Puzzle Wizard fame) and I have discussed all your entries, and have agreed on the following winners: FIRST Island weaves its charms (Len) Christmas Island is the definition here, a really nice lateral take on the word Christmas! And the rest of the clue ( weaves as the anagram indicator, and its charms as the fodder) just flows beautifully. Great job, Len. SECOND Noel crashed Smith's car (Golem) Noel  is the definition, with a nice bit of ambiguity as to whether Noel is a holiday or a man's name.   Crashed  is the anagram indicator, and Smith's car  is the fodder. Really smooth surface reading. THIRD March sits awkwardly as a time to celebrate (Des) A time to...

Today is the 15th birthday of my business, Sutherland Studios . And it's Chrissie time. So to celebrate, I'm giving you pressies — no other course of action else makes sense! Here's the challenge, should you choose to accept it! Write a cryptic clue of your very own, using an anagram, for the answer word CHRISTMAS.  Write your clue, and an explanation of how it works, in a comment, below this post. Don't be scared, you can do it. It's even fun (honest)! Your clue can be quirky, surreal, funny, serious, whatever you like. It needs to read well, like a mini phrase or sentence (not just a random assortment of words stuck together). Creativity and clue accuracy are what I'll be looking for. Here are some tips to help you get started. Your cryptic clue will need: 1) A definition for CHRISTMAS — this can be as simple, as oblique, or as silly as you like. The definition needs to be at the start or end of the clue (not stuck in the middle). 2) An anag...

Pens down! All the writing AND all the editing and proofreading are finished! \o/ Solving Cryptic Crosswords For Dummies (the in-depth 'how to' book, with 16 full crosswords) and Cryptic Crosswords For Dummies (a companion volume, with 56 crosswords) are FINALLY DONE! The books will be out in Australia, the UK, and the USA in August this year. My god, what an effort ... I started work in the middle of last December, so both books were written in just over 4 months. In the past 6 days I've solved and edited every single one of the clues in the second book (about 1,500 of the little toads). My red pen for editing literally ran out of ink on the last page, too! LOL I don't have to work on weekends or evenings now ... it'll take a bit of getting used to!

I've just received the first batch of page proofs for the first book ( Solving Cryptic Crosswords For Dummies ), it's starting to look like a real book! Very exciting  :) Now I "just" have to edit the first book, while still working 12–15 hours a day on the second ... aaaaaah! Clue writing in progress on my Mac screen (Crossword 36 from the second book) ... after this one is done, I've got 20 crosswords to go. Have written roughly 1,700 clues so far, about 600 to go! 14 days to deadline ...

I thought you might be interested in seeing some of the specialist software that helps me to write my cryptic crosswords. The latest tool in my arsenal is Wordplay Wizard , the creation of "Crossword Man", British-born Ross Beresford. He has several other programs for writing crosswords, but as I have custom crossword software written by my husband, all I need is this little one. This is PC only software, so I especially got Parallels Desktop 7 and Windows 7 for my Mac, and Wordplay Wizard runs beautifully in a separate window on my Mac desktop. So, what does Wordplay Wizard do? Well, it is rather awesome (I get excited by it, anyway!) ... you type in a word, any word (in fact, any collection of letters), and it will bring up all the possible arrangements and ways of clueing that word with a cryptic device! When you have to write as many cryptic crosswords as I do at the moment (1-2 full crosswords per day, which is about 30-70 clues!), you can see that this is an a...