Then Klahn started pilfering the big dictionaries of American English that had been computerized by the military. In 1991 he decided that the sum of his experience was pointing him toward big time crossword constructing. Klahn shot for the top markets. To gauge the difficulty of clueing and get a feel for the market, he started solving. He's collected 9,000 puzzles on his home computer since then, and he's solved every one.
Some puzzles take an hour to build.
One bear took 100. I like to linger over things sometimes. Some you work on for hours, walk away from for months, then finish when the answer to the whole problem strikes you. And despite the database of clues he's compiled, he still finds himself rifling through The Master Crossword Dictionary , The Random House Thesaurus of Slang , British English A to Zed and a host of other references. High standards are what Times crossword editor Will Shortz admires in Klahn.