Doing More With Less

I completely freaked out when I discovered that The New Yorker, my favourite magazine, at one time published cryptic crosswords edited by Fraser Simpson, my favourite cryptic crossword setter. An Amazon search had led me to the collection “101 Cryptic Crosswords: From The New Yorker”, published in 2001, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. How had it taken me so long to discover that such concentrated awesomeness exists? 

I added the collection to my Christmas wish list (it was December and my mother has spent years drumming it into me that you never buy yourself anything in that month). Then, I counted down the days to the 25th, hoping someone would get it for me.

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Someone did. (Thank you again to my brother- and sister-in-law!) But when I tore into my newly acquired gift, I discovered something even more wonderful than I’d expected: a novel puzzle format. Unlike what I’m used to seeing in the Saturday Globe and Mail, the puzzles published in The New Yorker have no blank spaces; every square is home to a letter.

In this interview with The Nation, Fraser Simpson explained that although the magazine originally wanted a full-on variety puzzle, space constraints pushed the puzzle’s space allowance to a single column. Rather than give up on the project, as Will Shortz, his partner, thought they might be forced to do, Simpson devised an 8 x 10 grid. “The unusual size turned out to be a gem,” Simpson is quoted as saying.

In The New Yorker puzzles, every square is home to a letter.

Since having my beautiful little girl, time has been in very short supply. But it turns out, this has been the best thing where my writing is concerned. In the past, my harsh inner critic would leave me staring at the blank page for hours. Now, I have no time for doubt; my daughter's nap will only last an hour, if I’m lucky, so I have to hit the page running.

I shouldn’t be surprised: plenty of writers have described how a shorter supply of time sharpened their focus. Alice Munro, my favourite Nobel prize winner, wrote while her children napped. Cryptic crossword aficionado and mystery writer Howard Shrier, at work on his first novel, would often get up “at four or five in the morning to get in a few hours before the kids woke up.”

Simpson’s constraints were temporary, and mine will be too. But until life opens back up again, I’m choosing to view the challenge as a gift.

What about you? 

Have you ever had to do more with less, and found yourself amazed by the results?

Fraser Simpson designed The New Yorker puzzles to fit in a single column of the magazine.