Tackling That “Surreal” Clue
Alright, so I was working on a crossword puzzle the other day, just unwinding, you know? And I hit this one clue. It wasn’t super complex, something hinting at weird art or dream-like stuff. My brain immediately jumped to the word “surreal”.
First thing I did was just sound it out in my head. S-U-R-R-E-A-L. Seven letters. Okay, seemed plausible. Checked the number of boxes for the answer. Yep, seven spots. Good start.
Then I thought about what “surreal” really means to me. It’s like stuff that’s totally bizarre, makes you feel like you’re dreaming. You know, like those paintings with melting clocks or weird landscapes. Dali’s stuff, basically. That felt right for the clue’s vibe.
But you can’t just rely on a feeling with crosswords. Gotta check the crossing letters, the ones already filled in from other words. Let’s see, I had a few letters already in place:
- _ _ R _ E _ L
Okay, so the third letter needed to be an ‘R’. Surreal has ‘R’ there. Check. The fifth letter needed to be an ‘E’. Surreal has ‘E’ there. Check. And the last letter needed to be ‘L’. Surreal ends in ‘L’. Check.
It was looking pretty solid. I double-checked the clue again. Was there anything tricky? Sometimes they use wordplay. But this one seemed pretty straightforward, aiming for that specific art style or feeling. “Like melting clocks art” or something similar, I think it was.
So, I grabbed my pencil – always use pencil for crosswords, learned that the hard way – and filled in S-U-R-R-E-A-L. Stepped back, looked at how it fit with the other words starting to form around it. Nothing looked obviously wrong.
Felt good. It’s always satisfying when the letters just click into place like that. It wasn’t some super obscure word, just needed to connect the clue’s meaning to the letters I already had. Job done, moved on to the next clue.
