Please do not publish this diary. (There is no tag, so it would be difficult to publish.)
Newsies, here is something a bit different — a Good News Puzzle to start the New Year!
This is a Juliecrostic, named in honor of our beloved puzzle master, Julie Wolf, who invented this style of puzzle.
The solver gets a list of clues that help identify the words that will fill out the grid. Each column contains words of the same length, and each column starting with column 2 is an anagram of the word to its left with the addition of one more letter.
Write down the added letter between the columns.
When the grid is complete, read down the single letter columns and a secret message is revealed!
Here is an example of a completed puzzle. Starting with row 1, the first word is HEARD. Add a C and scramble the letters and you get ARCHED. Add an S and scramble the letters and you get CRASHED.
When the grid is complete, read down and you see COLBERT and STEWART as the secret word or message.
So, here is an original puzzle full of Good News for the New Year!
There are 11 rows of three columns. Column A has 5 letters, column B has 6 letters, column C has 7 letters. First one to read the secret message wins! Ready? Go!
1a Not as likely to mess up
1b Toy in a bag
1c Talks without getting to the point
2a Practiced at a golf range
2b Gobble up
2c Very late
3a Throat ailment
3b Make up for losses
3c It’s worse than the crime
4a Overhaul
4b Sift out the junk
4c Ready to bear fruit
5a Corn
5b Foremost GOP concern and battlecry
5c Not a fantasy
6a Bridges
6b Pando forest
6c Brain activity
7a Dem House results in 2018
7b Amber waves of these
7c The only thing Trump cares about
8a Jiffy
8b Watch the stock market!
8c More stupid
9a Manafort co-conspirator
9b People who worked for James Comey
9c Hinting of good things to come
10a These point the way to the answer
10b Attractive leafy plant
10c Something special about the Trump administration
11a Any of 40 GOP House members, recently
11b Not in such a hurry
11c Looks angrily