Patti likes the reveal and gimmick of your DROPS THE MIC puzzle, but she feels that SEMICIRCLE and ECONOMICAL are not interesting enough entries to be featured thematically. She prefers theme entries to be snappy and fresh phrases, rather than one-word entries.
If you are up for finding a couple of replacement entries, she'd be happy to see a theme query. It's understandable if you'd rather shop this one elsewhere, intact, but if you are interested, you can send your proposed theme set to LATCrossword@pattivarol.com (Cc'ed). Please write REVISION QUERY in the subject line so we can attend to it more quickly.
Thanks for giving this another shot. I'm afraid Patti has ultimately decided to pass on this idea after all. She feels that the MIC suffix in COSMIC and DYNAMIC are too similar for this sort of treatment. Looking around a little herself, she doesn't feel it's possible to pull this off in an elegant way, and thinks it's best to move on to something new at this point.
Here is the revised themeset that also got the axe:
MICKJAGGER - Front man who "can't get no satisfaction"
COSMICDUST - Space matter
DYNAMICDUO - Nickname for Wayne and Grayson
DROPTHEMIC - How 3-Down might punctuate a performance, as illustrated in this puzzle
About a year after my submission, Amie Walker pulled off a nifty Sunday puzzle that used the same revealer, though with a different approach.
| Size | 15 x 15 |
| Total Words | 74 |
| Black Squares | 34 (15.11%) |
| 3-Letter Words | 21 |
| Avg. Word Len. | 5.16 |