I'm still a beginner, on the 300s or so, but I keep on running into road blocks with RTK. So I decided to try something new, preread each lesson, write in the book, and then go back and do each kanji.

Why?

I found out that if I just went from Kanji to kanji, I'd get hung up on the ones with stories that didn't really make sense to me, I'd slowly get bored and fall asleep.

So I'm reading each keyword quickly, and if the story doesn't match any of the immediate imagery I get in my head, then I'll edit the story to match MY imagery. If I can't come up with anything, I'll circle it and come back to it later (because kanji are used as primitives, there's a good chance that another kanji will use it that I do have a story for).

I'll see how this goes and report back to you guys, just posting to ask you guys to wish me luck!

(and give me opinions)

That's smarts! Good idea.

I do this too. It's goo.
Sometimes I feel like I don't have time to do it, and among those sometimes, sometimes making the stories sucks. I can lose attention or fall asleep too.

Sometimes I have time on a bus ride or just when I don't even feel like sitting at my desk, when I can use what would otherwise be lost time, flipping through RTK and letting my imagination play freely without the commitment to write it down. I can get a good laugh out that way, and it helps me feel like studying more, so I can get myself to the desk without even dragging myself there.

Heisig only works for me when I enjoy the process, I somehow forgot how to do that from about 1000-1500. Don't let it happen to you!

All good advice! I actually don't learn/suspend kanji (yet) that I can't come up with a story for. The next time I come across it it is often easier to work with.

I has a lot of success creating my own primitives and doing what you do. Sometimes I could pick out a loose theme in response to keywords, that worked much better than the book ones. I didn't start that until around 1500, but it worked great.

So far so good, first go and 96% remembered (missed 1), of course, the real test comes tomorrow when I wait a day between prereading and learning, and after that when I wait a day between prereading, learning, and testing.

If successful I'll have a system where I preread tomorrow's, learn today's, and test yesterday's, all the while keeping reviews and studying up.

Great success!

That is all.