2014 posting schedule

It is what you read when you don't have to…”

— Oscar Wilde

Happy New Year!

I started Magic Word Square almost six years ago-more than 5,200 posts ago-to explore the fun of playing with words and letters. I’ve published a book, Missing Letter Hidden Word Sudoku Vol. 1: ABC (explanation: http://magicwordsquare.blogspot.com/2012/12/word-sudoku-puzzle-book-available-on.html; on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Missing-Letter-Hidden-Word-Sudoku/dp/1481101390/) and I have more books coming to Amazon in 2014. I hope you enjoy solving these puzzles at least as much as I do creating them. As always, I invite your comments—please let me know what you think!

I post a variety of Sudoku puzzle sizes, plus a few variants I’ve created. The overall posting schedule remains complex because I post according to interweaving schedules: (1) daily; (2) monthly, and (3) on specific dates throughout the full year, usually historical.

Here’s the 2014 schedule.

Daily posting schedule, each week

• Monday: 6x6 Word Sudoku puzzles
• Tuesday: 8x8 Word Sudoku puzzles
• Wednesday: 9x9 Missing Letter, Hidden Word Sudoku puzzles
• Thursday: 9x9 Classic Word Sudoku puzzles
• Friday: 10x10 Word Sudoku puzzles
• Saturday: Swifty Sudoku
• Sunday: Sunday Challenge—12x12 Missing Letter, Hidden Word Sudoku puzzles

As I’m sure you’ve already discovered, a Swifty Sudoku puzzle is a Qudoku puzzle set spelling out a hopefully very bad adverbial pun. And the Sunday Challenge is a 12x12 Hidden Word Sudoku puzzle. My local newspaper (The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon) publishes 9x9s all week of increasing difficulty; then it publishes a 16x16 on Sunday, which I find too hard to do in a reasonable time. So I’ve created something in-between that includes a hidden word or phrase.

For 2014, I’ve added another wrinkle to the Hidden Word Sudoku puzzles on Wednesdays and Sundays: Each of the 105 words or phrases you’ll encounter on Wednesdays and Sundays in 2014 includes the three letters SET. So—since you know that—I leave them out! Hence the Missing Letter designation.

Monthly posting schedule
I’ll challenge you with an extra set of extra Word Sudoku puzzles posted on the second Monday of each month: Qudoku presents quotes from notable people, events or movies.

Specific date posting schedule
And finally, I post two series of puzzles based on historical dates.

• Day of entering the union: State Sudoku (last year I included the state tree and flower in each state, along with the state capital; this year it’s the origin of the state name)
• Birthday: Presidential Sudoku (last year I included the vice president; this year it’s the President's First Lady or Ladies)

So in 2014, I’m posting more than 500 Word Sudoku puzzles.

Now let’s complete the quote I started at the top of this post. Irish writer and poet Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854-1900) was one of London's most popular playwrights in the 1890s, perhaps best known for the play The Importance of Being Earnest and the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. To me, this quote summarizes the importance of stretching your mind reading-and solving puzzles. This isn’t just idle relaxation; it’s also specialized exercise!

HUBCAP
6x6 Word Sudoku Puzzle
Each row, column, 2x3 rectangle and set of circled cells contains the letters in the word exactly once

SELDOM
6x6 Word Sudoku Puzzle
Each row, column, 2x3 rectangle and set of circled cells contains the letters in the word exactly once

WINTRY
6x6 Word Sudoku Puzzle
Each row, column, 2x3 rectangle and set of circled cells contains the letters in the word exactly once
Copy circled letters to the corresponding numbered cells in the quote grid to spell out the rest of Wilde’s quote

Puzzle solutions in the morning.

Thanks,
--Dave

(All puzzles and text contained in this blog are copyright © 2008-2014, David H. Thompson. All rights reserved. Please tell your puzzle-loving friends to follow this blog. Thank you!)