[sunburnt63]

I am curious what others think of this idea for a theme:

NOT WORTH A PENNY (14)
RED BREASTED (11)
SORRY ABOUT THAT (14)
WINTER FROST (11)

I would have the the north east south and west answers in their corresponding area of the grid. Is this a good idea or no? Thanks for the input.

[Todd G]

I think this could be a workable theme.  But I'll make a few points.

• Solvers, in general, don't like circled letter themes as much as hidden word themes.  And it is possible to make this a hidden word theme, for instance UNORTHODOX (10), HES OUT HERE (10), AT LEAST I TRIED (13), NEWEST RELEASE (13)

.

• If you're going to stick with the circled letters, you need to change RED BREASTED: it's the only one where the letters are consecutive.  Change it to something like MEAN STREETS.  It's also the only one that doesn't start with the first lettter of the direction, which might be a problem depending on the editor.

.

• If you were planning to make the EAST and WEST entries vertical (to place them within the "east" and "west" parts of the grid), you'll have to worry about them crossing with the NORTH and SOUTH entries.

Hope this helps!