"I have evernote always open and when I get an idea or have a question I jot it down."

That's a great way to collect your thoughts!

I'll try to touch a few of these, not too comfortable or knowledged about the rest yet, I numbered them.

1 - Not sure why one week, but you can use the internal market to convert them immediately to Steem if you don't want to wait (this is what I do as I want it to grow as fast as possible at the moment).
2 - Comments don't reduce voting power at all yet, as far as I know
3-4 - Constantly apparently: https://steemit.com/steemit-help/@ash/questions-steem-dollar-interest
5 - Currently they are paid the same as posts, it all depends on how many votes and their weights.
6 - Yes; https://steemit.com/steemit/@james212/reminder-always-up-vote-you-own-comments-and-posts
7 - yes, all to accountname, memo is only needed when depositing to exchange.
8 - No, you can check your voting power at www.steemd.com/@username
9 - Don't know about the comments, but it seems like currently editing your "4 blogposts/day" may actually trigger the diminishing returns, but can't find if it effects comments.
10 - Not sure, it may be considered as advertisement in a way, so I don't think its "against the rules" but don't take my word for it. All I've read is that powering up on one account as much as possible is better than more with lower SP amounts (remember the earlier point about upvoting your own comments too)

In the end, it takes 0% for your voting power to go from 0-100% without voting activity (this may change) and I am not sure but voting too quickly on others may have some penalties too about how quick your power re-generates. All I know is that for the most efficient amount of curation rewards (which is depends on your voting power %) that you should vote around 20-25 per day.

Although I've been way too active lately and think at this early stage posting is rewarded more than just voting (plus at being at a low SP)

Hope that helped.