Part of the reason the stuff you try is hard on the ears might be because you have never heard such stuff before. The more you work on it, it can be made to sound decent, especially if you mix up wierd sounding progressions or licks with more normal ones. Originality is a bit overrated in a way. I notice you put a Dylan quote as your signature; he spent several years of performing writing songs that stole the tunes form other folk artists, but he was still great. You can be original in more ways that simply playing a chord progression no one has heard, it is the way you play it, the way you combine instruments, voice, etc.