Pretty much all of my life I have been trying to write, even managed to publish some shorter works and, ironically, ultimately ending up in a 25-years long soft

Pretty much all of my life I have been trying to write, even managed to publish some shorter works and, ironically, ultimately ending up in a 25-years long software engineering career due to writing (it's a long story). I've also done plenty of roleplaying, across a number of different systems (including several of my own). But the main roadblock in my writing has always been my problem to find a story. I can build worlds and invent interesting characters to no end, and describe cool scenes and situations -- but any attempt to have some kind of a coherent story has always ended up looking like, at best, a second-class rip off of one or another of my favourites works of fiction... :(