Puzzle Forty-Three: Seven The Hard Way

 

Today marks the culmination of the great 7xwords experiment, with Paolo Pasco tackling the thorniest possible 7x7 grid shape: one without any black squares at all. Malaika has graciously agreed to link to anyone else who posts a puzzle using the same grid, and my version follows. Good luck, and let Love guide your way. 

(You can solve my prior 7xwords puzzles here and here.)

Puzzle Forty-Two: Christmas Candy Mini-Meta Suite

 Here's a little extra holiday fun for you that I cooked up with the help of Crosshare.org's construction tool and its meta leaderboard function. Three puzzles are embedded below. The first two each have their own meta answer, but you won't submit just yet. Solve them both, then enter the answers into the third puzzle. When you have both correct, you'll get the chance to enter the final meta answer. 

As usual, there will be two winners: the first solver and one solver selected at random from the other correct entries. Winners will not receive stickers this time, but something more interesting: advance copies of a secret puzzle pack I'm currently putting the finishing touches on. 

Puzzle Forty-One: So You Say (meta)

The meta contest is back, without a cover image this time because I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't give the answer away. 

The meta answer is an American holiday. 

Submit answers here before 12 PM EST Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2021:

https://forms.gle/K9cK85RW1soM5jBa6

Two winners – the first person to submit a correct answer and another person selected at random from the correct entries – will receive a Lexicon Devil sticker as well as the respect of their puzzling peers.  

PDF / puz

Don't forget to sign up for the Lexicon Devil mailing list, where I distribute the metas by email before putting them on the site. If you have any issues signing up, just email lexicondevillive at outlook dot com with the subject line "subscribe." (Google Groups really wants you to use a Gmail address to participate. As group administrator I can get around that if you can't.)

And I haven't mentioned donations lately, but if you enjoyed these puzzles over the past year, please consider making a small contribution via the tip jar. The donations I received at last year's end really helped with the cost of the stickers and postage (plus printer ink, paper, domain name costs, etc.) Additionally, with enough donations, I may be able to upgrade the prizes from stickers to... Well, I don't want to give too much away, but let's say things that you wear or things that you drink from...

Finally, watch this space on Christmas, when a little something extra will appear as a thank-you for fans of the site.