Always take pictures, even if you're not holding a camera. Anyone can operate a camera, whether it's DSLR or a do-it-yourself pinhole, but not everyone can really take a great picture. Doing that relies more on how your mind sees the scene rather than how your camera captures it. If you are taking pictures with your brain and developing your compositional skills there, then you are training yourself to really see what's around you and how it all fits together, so by the time you do get a camera in your hands, the taking of the picture is merely a technicality.
Also - be original? All I see are the same themes again and again, and they usually involve women in various stages of undress simpering at the camera or poorly cropped and over-texturised to look romantic and tragic and profound. Do something entirely new that no one has done before ( or even if it has been done before do it differently ), and just take care to do it well... I think that's more satisfying as an 'artist'.