Anyway, you have, over the years, created several good casts of characters, complete with detailed backstories, settings of origin, &c. The strengths are in the details and, yes, the autobiographical nature of these various folks we can't help but know.
Might I suggest the weakness is we also can't help but wish they would do something. Perhaps its worth considering, nay even might be inspiring, to look at the simplicity of, say, a Biggles short story. The plots never were really complex in the shorts written of his RFC days.
I have to wonder if Johns had the same problem, that of never being able to dream up a story and drop his characters into them to completion. It sure looks like he started off with simple chapter-length short-stories he could handle early on, and gradually worked up to book-length complex, often parallel, plotlines as he gained experience, confidence, and figured out his ability to carry those more involved and twisting stories to conclusion.
Perhaps you might consider trying the same for your development of that ability. Start with a few "and the" stories, simple linear ones such as "Toad and the Phantom Strutter", "The Imperial Club and the Martini Gang" (The Colonel, Alan and the Lads take on some criminal syndicate run out of Westminster itself), or Tim and the Dwarf Rebellion.
The challenge? A short story, no more than ten tiles, simple plot you can picture in mind's eye with no parallel threads, no complexities, but first go back to one of the old Biggles RFC short stories and look at the simplicity yet the tidy trot to completion in each one. The problem, the first failure at solving it, the epiphany, the second attempt, and clarity of thought and heroism win the day.
Get one under your belt and gain the confidence you can do it, then do another.
I think your roadblock is the idea you are thinking in terms of book-length out of the gate. The complexities you admire in the products like Pratchett's don't just happen on talent alone.
My apologies for my directness, but perhaps worth thought, and I hope perhaps even a relight of the fire in your belly given this idea might be a light coming on.
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