Dr Tanya asks a few this week, but don’t worry, each one is quite short.

Evergreen or Topical content, which do you prefer writing?

I don’t really differentiate between the two, and writing one or the other depends on my mood. I also like to mix things up a bit.

In the sense that a lot of my posts are responses to prompts, and prompts are issued on a certain date, then you might say that a lot of my posts are topical.

However, when I come up with responses, most of the actual content is evergreen, so I’ll go with that instead. Poems, flash fiction, or even about my beliefs… none of them have a shelf-life.

I try not to overdose on subjects like politics, some of which is topical. Sometimes I just feel so strongly about something that I let off steam. Often, politicians are inconsistent, and I don’t mind pointing that out. But in general, it isn’t that I’m not interested, but more because I think people don’t want to be reading that. I don’t, not all the time.

Which do you write most often?

Evergreen, probably, although I don’t keep count. I’m certainly conscious that I don’t want to ram things like politics down people’s throats.

Which of these adds more value or engagement to your blog?

Value? That’s for the reader to decide.

Engagement? Funnily enough, I think my poetry, which I consider to be mostly evergreen, seems to attract the most readers and likes. It’s quite difficult to tell because again, I don’t keep tabs, but just taking a cursory look at my list of posts, poetry seems to attract as much as 50% more likes than straightforward prose posts. For my part, if people enjoy reading this nonsense then I am encouraged to keep writing it. But at the same time, I don’t want to write just poetry.

As for engagement via comments, I have no idea. I try to field each comment as it comes in, but don’t look any deeper. Most comments are from people I already know (in the blogosphere) and actually, it would be nice to sometimes receive something short from people who “like”, but don’t comment, even if just to say Hi.