I am experimenting with using a blog format to tell a long Christmas short story.  It includes photos, drawings, animated gifs, photoons, music, secret rollovers — and even words that often string together to make sentences.

It had seemed to me, in my quest to repurpose my blog-writing chops into fame-and-fortune-money chops, that my new art form might be the hula-hoop of 2010.  Here at the half-way point: no hoop, no hula girls.

The story takes place on Christmas Eve, this upcoming Christmas Eve. 

This sci-fi unlikelyhood is possible because it is set in Rudy's Bar in Hell's Kitchen, which is a nexus for improbability. 

By using a string theory controller concept stolen from Stephen Hawking, a group of cartoon characters from a Jersey PartyMob in another dimension cross into our world to take out Santa, kneecap Rudolph, and steal Christmas  — all this mayhem in order to turn all the Christmas carols into drinking songs.

It's, uh, a comedy.  And, uh, fictional, I think. Except for Rudy's.

The story is told by an OS blogger named Patton Lee Beaugus. Paddy Lee is a down-and-outer who spends his days nursing beers, blogging, listening to the jukebox songs he can't afford to play, and hoping for something exciting to happen.

 I thought of calling it a Blogsicle, you know, like a Blog Musical.  Unfortunately, I could only con my music buddies into making eight original recording of my Christmas parodies — like "It's The Most Wonderful Time For A Beer" 

I did weasel my way into getting professional recordings of two completely original tunes.  "I Want To Believe In Santa Claus" is my favorite.  My big production number is "Chuggalugga Christmas" which mixes some original stuff with parodies. 

From a logistical standpoint, a month's worth of daily blogs meant way too many songs. I'm filling in with parody lyrics and some ripped off classics.  These could get a cell with Wes Snipes for borrowing them without a license from Harry Fox. But as my gypsy grandmother used to say, 'you can't make an omelet without stealing eggs'.

Instead of a Blogsicle, I decided to call it a Bloggus Opus.  I figured I had to brand it as something cool, or nobody would know how ground-breaking it was, or what a brilliant mind I had.  Since my new art form takes as much time to read as "War And Peace" I figured the opus part worked okay.

A big barrier has been that the blog user experience doesn't lend itself to a serial.  I think most blog readers want something different every day.  I was hoping for a 'Perils of Pauline' kinda thing, where the blog-reading world would be so excited they want to read the new installment with their coffee and roll.  Unfortunately, some days blog-readers want tea, some want a donut or muffin or a bagel, and some want hot chocolate with cold pizza.  Yuck!  Some days, blogaholics skip getting their blog fix entirely, and spend the morning under the sheets, reading the New York Times.

A blog should stand alone. Context of knowing the work of the blogger and her previous blogs might make the experience better. But it shouldn't be mandatory.  Readers don't want to start on a blog on Chapter 17 without context.  They want to start at the beginning.  (See how cleverly I snuck in the link to the first chapter without you even noticing.)

After I opened the first dozen blogs with the equivalent of  "when last we left our heroes" even I got bored with my openings.

Here's another speed bump on my goat path to the Bloggers Hall Of Fame.  If you like to read a long form work of fiction like novel, you like being able to pick it up when you want to. You like being able to put it down when you feel like it. You don't want to wait a day to find out if the PartyMob guy with the weed-wacker is going to use it on the bar manager or the Westie hit-man.

To counter this particular speed bump, I'm putting my Bloggus Opus Artus Formus Blogsicle Thingie in its entirety on the website BuddaBings.com, so a reader can read it all at once, or when they want, or just listen to the songs, or look at the pictures.  Or even get out the Kindle and read the scary parts to the kids to keep them from putting the cat in the toilet again.  But doing it that way isn't really a blog.

I wanted to make my individual blogs more or less blog length, and it seemed like it would hit 30 which it did.  However, I'm not sure Black Friday was an auspicious day to start.  People are more in the "elbow the fat lady out of way" spirit than the Christmas spirit.  

In conclusion, I have formed no hard conclusions, yet.

It is possible that I could wake up on Christmas morning to find my my Christmas stocking contains an engraved invitation to "Blogging With The Stars".  Maybe. Maybe not.

But maybe I'm only channeling the real story from another string theory dimension, in which case the most I can expect is a can of warm Pabst Blue Ribbon — if Christmas comes at all.