So last year I thought up of a new thing to make called "26 Squares". It is a crossword consisting of 26 squares, one square for each letter of the alphabet. I thought the English language would be varied enough for this. But I just finished making #26 and already I'm having to force myself to limit certain words, especially the ones with q, x, j, and z in them. Short words, like "vex", or "fix", or "box", "zap", words like that. It gets really hard to do when you outlaw certain words.

I've discovered some new words to use. I don't want to use the obscure ones. So it gets even harder. You can see what I've done at the 26 Squares website.

How I do it is I cut out 26 squares, one for each letter, and put them on my bathroom counter. I think of words containing the letters q, j, z, x, and v first, then fill out the rest with the remaining squares. This involves tons of moving of the squares, so I'm saving paper this way. And also, I can tell very easily which letters I haven't already used. I found out very quickly the trouble with the English alphabet is there's only 5 vowels, so they usually are crossed between words. I once had a z in a cross. I was very proud of that. Even though I don't think anyone is actively DOING these. Just like with my Game Boy game. I'd love to get Frank the Fruit Fly published but it seems like nobody is interested in doing that.