One of the first writer blogs I linked on my blogroll was Brown Trout’s Next Book, purportedly kept by an overweight, aging, thrice-divorced academic who had enjoyed a stint of literary success some years ago, but subsequently saw his career tank in part due to his heaving drinking and self-destructiveness.

On August 9, the trout published a post that began like this:

A Disclosure

Hi there. It’s me talking to you. The name’s Dave, and I’m a writer…of sorts.

Same guy as before, but not really. While I do share similar eccentricities and passions to the creature you’ve come to know as The Brown Trout, I am distinct in that I am not a character of fiction. I’m a real guy. Flesh and bone.

Like BT, I’m a writer. I also work for a major university. Unlike BT, I’ve no real publishing history. I’ve also only been married once, not thrice. And if BT and I were to square of in the ring, he’d hold a significant weight advantage. Also, I’ve never had a heart attack.

But I have written a few novels. Two are pretty good. One really sucked. Another is in the works and will be wrapped up in time for Christmas. It’s the best thing I’ve done yet. I’ve also scribbled down at least fifty short stories, of which four have been published. I’ve picked up a few prizes and that notorious MFA degree. Oh, and I also have written a screenplay.

The blog’s now gone.

I supposed it’s a given that writers suffer a compulsion to create fictional worlds. So why should blogs, as a medium, be exempt?

All the same, I like “Dave” far more than I liked his his fictional creation, and I’m glad BT is now folded away someplace, I imagine rather like a balloon deflated & creased the day after the Macy’s parade.

Off to edit my blogroll . . .

(Oh, lest this be lost forever, BT submitted a question, in character, to Miss Snark — and commenters unfamiliar with his blog immediately detected the whiff of fakery. BT responded to their skepticism in the comments: “Despite the insinuations of the previous commenter, I can assure you I am as real as Mr. Frey, and likely more so.”)