Good advice, Roger. I personally like gesture drawings - or semi blind gesture drawings. That is where you take an object and just look at it and basically sketch it out without looking at the paper. Just really the outline. You get a real FEEL for the subject that way and can end up with some interesting images.
IT DOESN'T HAVE TO LOOK LIKE A PHOTOGRAPH!!!!
I was thinking of starting a thread myself, about some of the work I've discovered on this site (traditional media, not photography) that I know would never be accepted by a gallery, but which I found full of SOUL and really spoke to me. I've favoriited several of those drawings and paintings. They have character. Some of the well trained and excellent artists here also have work with character, but with some of them, I find the work technically excellent but dull, dry and uninspiring.
And, yeah, what Roger said.