well Stephen, I want to give you some suggestion. I think your problem(no offense, everyone have their own problem) is that you have some ideas while you don't have enough technical skill to implement them.
And in my opinion a good looking photograph or drawing should follow some sort of rule(you can break the rules if you know them very well) in terms of composition and layout and coloring and bababa... and all these rules, just take time to learn via practice or studying other people's work.
Why don't you setup a plan for yourself, forgot about creativity for a while, say 6 months. Spend all your time on sharpening your hands on one specific area, say drawing. You can feel free to imiate other people's work as exercise, and solidify your understanding on why others did their work in such a way, it could be a good way to understand those "rules".
sometimes it's really difficult to be creative if your hand doesn't work with your brain.
Just trying to be helpful