I've been a longtime solver of crosswords, but a friend recently shared a puzzle that he had created and I was encouraged to try my hand as well. I referred to the guide and resources here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/14/cross...eries.html and it was a lot of fun, and nowhere near as daunting as I had previously thought.
I figured I'd post my first puzzle here for anyone interested in playing, and I'm open to feedback or questions. As a starting point, I've tried to follow the NYT crossword conventions in terms of theme words, puzzle setup, and clue conventions, and I've aimed at a Tuesday-Wednesday-ish level of difficulty, with a US and millennial perspective. I'm reasonably happy with how this one turned out as a first attempt with a less-than-ideal word bank and about 3 hours of work put into it, but I'd love to get better at constructing these, especially if there's interest here or among my RL friends.
EDIT:
I've revised my first attempt to swap out some words and clues that I wasn't too happy about.
Thanks for this! Although if this is Tuesday-Wednesday, I'm in trouble. Couldn't finish it, but my attempt's below. You wouldn't be willing to share the answer key, would you?
Some of my answers are nonsense, I'm sure. If FERN (11-down) and TREE (12-down) are correct, I'm not sure Undergrowth Occupant and Canopy Occupant make sense as clues. Ferns and trees make up the undergrowth and canopy rather than occupy it, I think. Is 60-down LIMO? (Would fit with EXILES and NOTES) I wasn't sure because while a limo is stretched out, stretched out doesn't mean limo. I'm nit picking; this was a fun puzzle.
Edit: P.S. I loved the theme.
If you keep making them (as time permits), I'll keep trying them (as time permits). As someone who's pretty much only familiar with NYT style, this was immediately intelligible.
Thanks for the feedback naufragar, I've attached the solution to the first post.
On reflection there are definitely some clues or words that aren't great, like the intersection of 64-Across and 50-Down both being pretty meh words, or the FERN/TREE clues as you noted, that's just laziness on my part. And I definitely need to re-read the clues after I write them all to make sure each section has approachable options.
Experimenting with more and longer overlaps, though with the same general layout. There's one section I'm not too happy with, but attempts to fix it led to even worse results . Forum-goers here might just recognize the theme...
I've also revised my first puzzle in the OP, though it's probably not worth re-doing if you attempted the first draft. I just cleaned up some words and clues but the bulk of it is unchanged.
Experimenting with more and longer overlaps, though with the same general layout. There's one section I'm not too happy with, but attempts to fix it led to even worse results . Forum-goers here might just recognize the theme...
So this puzzle ended up being a bit easier both to construct and to do than the last one, because I accidentally positioned my theme words in such a way that there's fewer overlaps between the 9 sections of the grid than usual, and by the time I realized I had already written in over half the puzzle . On the plus side, that made it a lot easier to find reasonable words to fill in, and let me take a bit more time writing clues instead.
Solution in spoiler:
Quagma, yeah sorry about that spelling, sometimes the program's default dictionary includes some pretty loosely defined acceptable alternative spellings. I hear if you pay for the real professional software, it does a much better job, but I'm not quite ready to start paying those subscription fees.
We're back after a couple of failed attempts when I got too ambitious with the layout. I decided to scale back for now and only include one 15-letter answer this week
Puzzle #4: Leave Unread
As I've been sharing these puzzles with more of my friends who are bored out of their minds from home isolation, I've come up with a more computer-friendly way to play these puzzles, using Powerpoint. Also, the solution is now a password-protected .pdf, to view the solution just unlock the file with the password 'solution'.
I heard some player feedback from a couple of previous puzzles that some of my clues are a bit vague, and that sometimes those sections can become frustrating. I've tried to give some more context to some clues this week and will likely go back and edit some of the puzzles that I've posted before.
I'm also pleased to share that I've developed an Excel interface for playing my puzzles on a computer. Grid inputs are a significant improvement from powerpoint, and the spreadsheet supports checking/revealing individual answers, as well as checking/revealing the entire puzzle. It may still be a bit buggy but I'll keep working on it, and I'll likely update previous weeks' puzzles to include this method as well. Unfortunately RB won't let me upload a .xlsm file directly, so I've zipped it and attached that.
EDIT: I've learned that there may be some compatibility issues with earlier versions of Excel causing issues with my use of background images to display the grid. Quite frustrating, I'm thinking about other options.
There must be crossword puzzle software or a website that already exists, right? A quick search found https://www.eclipsecrossword.com , might be trustworthy.
I'm using software (Crossfire) to create the puzzles, but the Excel file is for other people to play them from a computer, as it appears that many of my friends don't own a printer at home. I did do a quick search for that kind of web app or software, but none of the ones I've looked at have what I'm looking for. The closest is https://www.crossword-compiler.com/interactive.html but I don't want to pay for it.
Couldn't finish it, but my attempt's below. You wouldn't be willing to share the answer key, would you? 
. Forum-goers here might just recognize the theme...
. On the plus side, that made it a lot easier to find reasonable words to fill in, and let me take a bit more time writing clues instead.
