As for journals and scenes, I have a really weird habit leftover from when I was big into writing introduced to me in Natalie Goldberg's writing: keep a notebook everywhere you go and record things that interest you, funny things that happen, descriptions you think of - just anything that would make good material. Then, use it later. I'm really bad about names. I work at a job where I see everyone's name on a computer as I check out books for them. So I'm constantly asking them how they pronouce them and sending them to my e-mail to use later.