Link building questions from a newbie

Hello. I am a newbie. I want to be an affiliate marketer. But this doesn't matter now. At the moment my purpose is to master SEO. I have a few questions.
1. I've read enough about SEO (I've been reading for a few weeks). It's time to begin practicing. I will make a micro niche blog for an easy to rank for key phrase, become No.1, make a new micro niche blog for a key phrase with more competition, become No.1 and so on... Is this a good idea?
2. I will build links manually. I think that I should learn the toilful, dirty ways of link building and only then I should begin using link building software. What do you think?

P.S. I don't think about money now. All that matters at this stage is to become a good SEO practician.

Use this forum as much as possible to learn some tricks.. manual link building will be way to tedious for your larger sites.. just find a way to penetrate your niche and get it going from there.

I started of with 10 sites personally.. I did 4 easy, 4 medium, and 2 long term.. this way I always had something to work on and stayed focused on it.

Thank you for the information.
A few minutes after I posted this thread, I created a blog in Blogger. Now, 2 days later, it is 6th without a single link. Seems like I chose too easy key phrase. I'll try with tougher phrases.