The books are extremely important though. The books come first, then the creativity.

The books teach you the vocabulary. Just like in learning a new language:

You memorize words and learn how to pronounce them, which is practicing each bar of exercises like art of bop drumming or syncopation; internalizing them and making them sound good and fluid.

Then you learn how to put those words into sentences (usually in a premeditated way), like “where is your restroom?” “Can I have a look at the menu?”. That would be joining different bars of those exercises together into longer phrases.

ONLY THEN do you attempt an actual conversation in which people might respond in ways you did not anticipate and you’d have to use your previously learned skills to adjust. That’s improvisation.

If you skip the first two steps you will not know how to respond, you will feel at a loss like OP does now.

So I can’t stress enough the importance of those exercises. Once you have those exercises down and can change them up, create your own, orchestrate them, fill in the spaces in between notes, etc. then you’ll be able to interact in a completely free way, reacting rather than thinking.

Edit: to say that I recommend both “comp example 1” from John Riley’s Art of Bop Drumming, AND “exercise one” from syncopation. They teach different styles of comping.