The dark little secret is not so dark after all. It's just genuine interaction and writing quality posts like you do. Of course there are other "secrets". You can read a post of mine on it or just search Steemit for it. There's a lot of tips out there.

As for your writing tips, oh I think I could use some of that present tense you mentioned. And maybe add some more adjectives and adverbs too.

Anyway we all fail at first but when we learn a lot from our mistakes and read more about what we can do here then we can become great Steemians! :D

Oh wait... if you want a "dark" secret then here you go: Some people earn a lot here from using voting bots and pay for upvotes/resteems and other services. You can try it too if you want. Better research more on it first though.

Good luck and enjoy Steeming!