You are on the right track! One other word of advice, now that this post is old: don't upvote posts that are older than 7 days, they no longer pay out anything and it would be better to save your votes for something you can get curation rewards on. This is most important for you to grow as a minnow.
And, don't vote on the trending page, vote on things that you like and build relationships with the people whose work you like