Hello! It sounds like you're on the right track!

Next time you find that you're in that "awake and asleep" in-between state, try moving in an unnatural way, like sliding sideways or levitating vertically or rotating in either direction. Sometimes that's the best way to get the "dream body" (sorry, don't have a better word for this) used to working independently -- if you try to move in a more natural way you risk breaking SP.

Definitely journaling is a big factor in improving your recall! I keep a very detailed private journal and occasionally post relevant dreams to this forum. I can say with certainty that once I started writing my dreams down regularly, they got a lot more interesting, even the non-lucid ones!