A man who wrote crossword puzzles for The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal explains what his job entails

'The next step is filling in the rest of the grid.'

"The goal is to have every word in the grid be something that the solver will recognize. Sometimes, as with the Daily Celebrity Crossword, you want everything to be solvable even by someone who has never solved a crossword before; other times you can have the vocabulary be a little more difficult, but you never want it to be truly obscure.

"Difficulty level should come from the cluing, not the words in the puzzle. After the grid is done, then it's time to clue. In an easy puzzle, the goal is to make clues without multiple possible answers (a 5-letter word for 'Fast' might be 'RAPID or 'QUICK' or 'HASTY' or several other things). In a harder puzzle, you want those ambiguities, and you also want to throw in some wordplay to keep solvers a little bit off-balance.

"How long a puzzle takes to create depends on a lot of things — the size, difficulty level, whether there are any particular constraints, and so on. I've had puzzles take me mere hours to create; I've had others take weeks. I can usually complete a simple puzzle in a matter of hours, whereas a medium or hard puzzle could take a day or two."

'Writer's block could sometimes be an issue.'

"Most of the time, I have a theme to begin with, or at least an area. For example, Daily Celebrity Crossword has a different theme each day, such as TV Tuesday and Sports Fan Friday, and that gives me a starting place for brainstorming what the puzzle should be about.

"I have a great deal of respect for the constructors who have assignments where they have to release puzzles every week with fresh, original themes. I have rarely been in that position, but when I was, it's true that writer's block could sometimes be an issue. I would typically try to work ahead of schedule so that when writer's block did hit, it wouldn't put me behind deadline."

'Without question, the best part of my job is the people.'

"I work with great editors and constructors on a daily basis, but aside from that, there is a puzzle community that I am fortunate to be a part of, and many of my closest friends come from that world."

'The job also has its challenges.'

"It's sometimes difficult to find ways to keep things fresh. When you have to clue 'ODE' for the thousandth time, it can be a drag to sit there and try to think of a new way to clue it."

'There is a stereotype of puzzle constructors, and puzzle enthusiasts, of being 'nerds.''

"I don't care for that word at all, and I don't think it's accurate. Puzzlers generally have certain things in common — a love of learning new things, an appreciation for wordplay, a nimble mind, and so on — but we don't typically look or behave like characters from 'The Big Bang Theory.'"

'The most common question I get is, 'Do you know Will Shortz?''

"The answer is, yes; I've known Will, The New York Times crossword puzzle editor, for about 30 years now.

"I'm also asked, 'Which comes first, the words or the clues?' The words in the grid come first."

'For most people, puzzlemaking is a side job.'

"I'm not sure of the exact number of puzzlemakers in the US, but those who do it full-time (including editors) is a very small number — probably not more than several dozen."

'Almost nobody makes a career solely constructing puzzles, and I think it's safe to say that nobody gets wealthy that way.'

"Most people who want a career in puzzles also have to do proofreading, editing, and so on. A lucky few get jobs editing the puzzles for large newspapers or for publishing houses.

"If you get a normal-sized puzzle published in a newspaper, you will probably earn somewhere from $150 to $300 for it; if you get one published on a Sunday, it will be somewhere from $300 to $1000. But you'll be lucky to get more than a dozen or two puzzles published in newspapers in a single year (and probably not more than a small handful of those will be Sunday puzzles), so you can see how grim the math is when it comes to earning a living that way."

'My biggest piece of advice for a puzzlemaker is ... '

" ... never put an obscure word in the grid just because it's the only thing that will work. Re-do the puzzle instead, even if it means going back to the beginning and putting the theme entries in different positions."