Hello, @sandpiper, and Welcome to Steemit.

As a "writer" with various interests, you'll find Steemit to be an excellent platform. I, too was a tentative blogger, and as a teacher, student of languages, editor, and copywriter, I realized that Steemit was the platform that I had been waiting for.

Not only does Steemit provide a great platform for our writing, it also brings a ready audience. And then it motivates the audience to participate.

Below are a few basic points of advice re posting on Steemit.

1. Longer posts are more lucrative than short posts. If you make a post of 20–30 paragraphs, it's more likely to earn rewards.
2. Include some photos, images or graphs, to complement the text.
3. Make sure the text and photos are formatted properly, so that your post looks attractive and appealing.
4. Be yourself.
5. Be interesting and informative.
6. Create quality content. Steemit is intended to be a platform of quality content. (You will see many insignificant posts with meager content and no quality. Most of those of posts [called “shitposts” by Steemit whale Stellabelle] will earn few rewards and soon pass into oblivion.)
7. Get online and start curating. Read various posts, comment on those posts you find interesting, and upvote those posts. That’s the best way to attract followers.

Hope this helps for now. Good luck, and Full Steem Ahead!

p.s. Since you are interested in language and language acquisition, here's a link to a series that I've been posting on Steemit.

https://steemit.com/writing/@majes.tytyty/vocab-ability-introduction-and-guide-a-more-powerful-vocabulary-this-post-includes-the-intro-and-guide-to-the-series

It's the Introduction to the series, which presents advanced-level English vocabulary roots, as well as the words derived from those roots. I compiled all this info when I was teaching ESL in Japan years ago, and even self-published it in book form. (A great way to lose lots of money, real quickly.)

Now, however, I can present it to a wider audience on Steemit, and there's no way I can lose as much money as I lost in publishing it! Woohoo!!