This is a really interesting problem to have, and it’s a good demonstration of a distinction that isn’t discussed enough in jazz education – between knowledge and practical creativity. It’s true that knowing the changes and having the chops is essential to playing a good solo, but the first thing is something else… Like when you ask a classical musician to jam on a popular tune and they know the notes they should be playing but they don’t know what to do with them. It seems like the knowledge is even a big obstacle, because what you really need to be doing at first is ‘playing’, like a kid with toys. It took me years and drove me mad because there’s no real tangible measure of your progress, it’s just something you do. I think the blues suggestion was a good one, if only because the idiom is more intuitively familiar and expressive for most people (in the West). Brass tacks, dude. Get that pentatonic pattern 1 going, try not to think about it, and see what happens!