Don't give up already! This is not a typical use of Project, and it is taking me some time to figure out what you are doing, but I do believe it will work fine. I think you do not use the difference between work and duration, but for your purposes they are the same thing.

Try this:

Change the fields.
Get rid of all fields that contain the word "Work"
Instead add fields so they're in this order:
Name, Baseline Start, Baseline Finish, Baseline Duration, Actual Start, Actual Duration, % Comp, Actual Finish

See if you can enter the baselines (you can enter the Baseline Dur as 18h) and then the ActualStart and then ActualDuration (9h) and project will calculate the rest.