How do I waste time...

Let me count the ways.

So today I started my fast draft challenge. Total pages written: 6.5. Goal: 10. I suppose I should be positive and say I'll catch up tomorrow, or on the weekend. And I really hope I do.

The problem is, I find myself drifting mentally when I start writing. I'm an editor. It's what I do. And, worse, I'm a huge perfectionist with ginormously high expectations, especially of myself. So to "write crap" or put something down on paper that is not grammatically correct, or well written, just won't happen. I can't do it. I won't let myself do it. So while I'm trying to free write, and turn off the editor (and a certain Editing Instructor internal editor is fortunately and thankfully on vacation.), I find myself wandering... I look away from the computer, I craft what is going to happen next in my head, plan it out, figure out how I'm going to word it, massage it and perfect it in my head before I'll let myself put pen to paper (or rather finger to keyboard.) And as I'm looking away, I find other pretty things to distract me. Floating lint? Cool. let's watch. Call my answering machine at home to see if I've gotten any messages in the past 3.2 minutes? Hey-hey! Check statcounter? oooh. people like me, they really like me! And on it goes.

And it's driving me crazy. I don't know how to just let myself write. To sit there and let the muse overtake me and just splurt it out.

And the best advice I've ever gotten was to just "sit down and do it" Well I've tried that. I've tried that over and over and It. Doesn't. Work.

And you see, now I'm disappointed in myself for not achieving my goal, despite spending probably close to six hours on Prada-Bag Princess. And what I did accomplish? Actually not bad. I basically trashed the beginning I'd already written and started over and I think this version is going to work much better.

*sigh* maybe it will be better tomorrow.

And now, I'd like to ask my 2.5 readers a question. I'm targetting PBP at Whiskey Creek Press Torrid's Twisted Tales, which is a sexy take on a fairy tale. The thing is, I picked a fairy tale that is a farily new. i.e. published in the last fifteen years. So, while I've taken the bare bones of the story (and if you look at my title it shouldn't be too hard to figure out which story), and certainly changed things around (I can pretty much guarantee that human/dragon sex scenes don't happen in the original story *grin*) I'm worried about copyright infringement issues. WIll the author get mad that I've done this? Do I need to change the story completely to make it completely different from the original? I know you can't copyright an idea, and I haven't used any of the author's original words (except the characters' first names, which I'm also very hesitant about), so I think legally I should be ok, but I'm worried. I like this story idea and where it's going and I don't want to trash it, but if my opportunities for publication are non existant because of this, there's not really any point. right?

Opinions?

Thanks :)