You're trying way too hard imho, bud. You need to take a more relaxed approach, LD's take alot of patience and when you actually have one you'll start to see how they work and how to make them occur.

If what you're doing is ok with you, (you're comfortable with it), then by all means... But don't torture yourself lol.

Simple dream recall techniques and reality checks should increase your chances to make it happen the first time. It sounds like you want it bad enough to think about your dreams often and distinguish between the waking world and dream world, so trust in that, and soon enough you'll hit it.