Thanks to this thread, I had some ideas to try when trying out my motor on my Newport 17 couple days ago. First time out so I wanted start with just motoring, didn't even take the mast and sails.
When backing up out of the dock, using the motor and rudder together seem to work best. For forward motoring, I left the motor straight and used the rudder for steering. That worked very well. It also let me sit on the opposite side of the boat to balance out the motor weight, since I did not need to reach the OB tiller.