Ok, so here's what I'd say based on my experience:

At the moment when Steemit is still in beta, it's very lacking in features. So even if you write a great peace it likely won't get huge payouts even if it was better on quality than the average on 'trending' tab. But luckily there are curator teams, like @ocd; by using the 'ocd-resteem' tag it's much more likely you'll get an appropriate upvote from the team for your underappreciated article.

But what I'd do first would be getting to know people; this is a social media after all! Earning money from authoring is great and all but should not be the main goal as a new user because at the moment it's almost impossible to get a following which is pretty much a necessity on the state of Steemit for a good regular payout.

So, try find some interesting content and authors and throw comments preferably that add value to the original posts and show that you have really read their content; every author can appreciate when their content get responded with a little more effort than "Nice post". Of course it's easier on topics that you're actually interested in.

But of course you should not get discouraged about writing your own content, you definitely should write about anything you feel like. Steemit isn't very new-user friendly but you'll get some following if you keep writing decent content, slow but steady. But with time I believe some of the problems, that new users face also, will get solutions

So, take Steemit as it is at the moment; an experiment. Enjoy your time here!

Oh, almost forgot: do take a look on @minnowsupport and their discord channel. There are many different chat rooms where you can hang out and get support, really nice and welcoming people there. There's also an upvote bot you can use to upvote your posts, with instructions on how to get using it.