How can I improve the fluidity of my playing???

Are you playing with a pic or just using your nails? Also is it a case of you know what your supposed to play but cant make it sound right, or are you playing it from scratch and trying to work out the fingering. I you know what your supposed to be playing but cant, try playing it through slowly and build up the speed. There are lots of posts on this sight about practice, you might find some help looking at them.

Welcome to the Musical Madhouse!

You might try some of these exercises:

McFarlane's strength and speed builders.

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to diagnose with your rhythm playing. How long have you been playing? What kinds of songs have you been learning? A bit more information might be helpful for giving you some suggestions. But in general I'd suggest taking a good listen to great rhythm players like John Lennon and Keith Richards. Let some of that soak in and learn some of their tunes. That might be the ticket.

Chord melody style may be one of the most difficult techniques to master. Unless you have a really well developed strumming ability it will take alot of time to get it down. I suggest practicing the chord shapes your dealing with in this manner....

Strum the chord then arpeggiate the notes being held. If any string is open play it regardless. Do this while alternating the notes and skipping strings.

If there is a melody involved, try playing the chords in between 1-2 beats longer then implied. This will give you time to go from the melody notes to the chord shape desired.

The only way youll get this down, is by playing your scales, and practicing your chord progressions. Is there an easier way? No.

Chord melody style is something developed as you gradually improve your ability to play both chords and lead note melodies. Without a firm grounding in both, youll never accomplish either.

Kido

Thanks lads-I have been playing for a long time but my rythmn playing is still quite boring (see I can't even spell it!!!)-I hear buskers in the street playing with just an acoustic and they soung great-I have a few strumming patterns and know about partial chords and even a small amount about chordal melody but I could still send myself to sleep!!!

Try some of the reggae lessons on the net.

One thing I've done is simply take a G-C-D progression and see how different I can make it sound just through rhythm, tempo, strumming, palm muting, etc. Eighteen months ago my wife said she'd lose her mind listening to those same three chords over and over. A few weeks ago, she said "hey, you're getting pretty good!" And it was still those chords.

Kido's suggestion on arpeggiating the chords has really helped as well. And Nick's suggestion on reggae is surprisingly helpful. My neighbor showed me the difference in strumming technique for reggae and it helped in all aspects of my playing.

Just keep at it.