Just a friendly hello from a newb

[BradleyRobbins]

Just saying hello.  I'm new to the forum and fairly new to cruciverbalism.  Have solved puzzles for a few years now, and somewhat working on creating them for a little while.  Decided to give it a little more effort now.  I have tons of themes and clues, have just hated doing grid work.  Hopefully I can be an asset to this forum as it has been useful to me in the past few days just browsing through some of the info and articles.

[SJS]

I love gridwork and am frustrated trying to find good themes.

Welcome.  This forum tends to be quiet, but there's lots of good stuff here (publisher specs, basic rules, sage advice) .  You should get on cruciverb-L (see menu) if you can't get your questions answered in the forum.

[worldofcrosswords]

Bradley, FYI I found that the gold membership was worth getting. The puzzle databases have been super helpful in creating new puzzles.

I'm curious, are you using a specific software to create puzzles, or doing it by hand?

- Marya

[BradleyRobbins]

For various reasons I was doing things by hand, but lately I have been using the Demo of Crossdown as it allows me to try multiple fills of a smaller area.  I will buy some software eventually, but right now this is a hobby that does not pay and I am unemployed and cannot afford to spend on software for a hobby.  Same goes for gold membership.  I think (perhaps wrongly), however, that I am pretty good at writing clues, but I need to come up with good workable themes.  I have two puzzles I have submitted right now, so hopefully someone will like them!

[worldofcrosswords]

Hi Bradley,

It's easy to understand that you don't want to pay for what may turn out to be a hobby with no profits.  I haven't bought any software to build puzzles, and don't plan to, until it becomes clear that the money will be well spent.

The reason I purchased the gold membership was for the list of puzzle entries (words in the grid, not clues) from various crossword puzzle resources like the NY Times etc. Also the search for those entries has really come in handy. I've been pleasantly surprised by how useful the databases have been, and I found the expense acceptable. But if you're not having trouble filling in the grid, then this may not be so helpful to you. I'm not trying to sell anyone on this, just recommending it as a good resource since it helped me.

Anyway, good luck with your efforts!

Marya