yes I think natural is the key here.

However, I have seen spam blogs going to the top pages for popular search phrases from time to time; I recon these are usually short term though.

I guess the key is, if you are going to do this long term, you'd want to write quality/sticky content and grow your blog naturally that way

my advice:
~10 posts
5 links per article
automatic ping-o matic when you submit your blog

hope this helps