**Hello! You’ve found one of my cryptics from before I figured out how to make cryptics well! Please enjoy the diamonds in the rough, but expect neither elegance nor fairness. It takes a while to learn how to do it right!**
Happy New Year, cryptic folks!
It looks like the first puzzle of 2021 is going to be the January monthly cryptic! This one might play a little harder than last month’s but is hopefully still approachable for folks. I’d happy to dial the difficulty back next time if it’s too rough on people.
As always, I’m thankful for the supportive crossword community. Special thanks this time around go to k0rmad and Nate Cardin for the insightful test solving. Nate has some phenomenal new cryptics that you folks will be seeing soon. Don’t miss them!
Good luck, enjoy, and see you with a themed crossword next Wednesday!
Square Pursuit 
where can i find nate’s puzzles?
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He doesn’t post in one regular place, but this one is excellent: https://toughasnails.net/2020/09/28/guest-cryptic-from-nate-cardin/
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the one you mention as upcoming, where will that be?
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I don’t have a link yet, but Nate is on the team at new cryptic team at The Browser and you’ll see it there. It’s a subscription site but the first one, by Andrew Ries, is free and a knockout, in my opinion.
https://thebrowser.com/crossword/
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