I've been getting back on track lately, clearing my 250+ fail pile (now at 100 *wipes sweat*) I get to see the cards that I fail right away after I "learn" them. All the while I have not added any new cards as I want to have a < 20 fail pile before I commence my RTK journey. Don't try to convince me out of this. Read below anyway.

So I check the story of the card that I failed, I'm like 'oh this sucks', I find a new one or make my own, 'Learn' it again. Review time comes for that card - I remember the former story and not the new one....

Why.
why
why
why
why

I'm happy I remembered it and all but I just want to know if it's only me out there. It's certainly not my short term memory kickin in because after I "learn" a card, I usually test it the next day the very least, if not two days after.

yep used to happen to me all the time. Generally I've decided to not change the story after 1 or 2 reviews.

Heisig actually says this in the book too; he states that it's better to improve a current with more detail/imagery then try to make a new one for the same kanji.

Yeah, sometimes your memory can be a little unpredictable... I've had some cases where I'd be trying to find good story for a difficult kanji on this site. I'd find a story that's very dull and flat and think, "I'd never remember this story". Then I find a brilliant story, go through the motions of making strong imagery in my head, and I'm sure I'll never forget it. When reviews come around, I remember the flat story, and can't recall the better one. It's all good as long as you remember the kanji... after a while, I guess you forget most stories, and just start recalling the primitives, or the kanji as a whole.

Yeah, happens maybe 30% of the time where I'll change a story completely then find I need to revert back to it later. The rest of the time the new story is so much better (or the old one so bad) that the new one does the job completely. Sometimes the new story requires a few slight tweaks, but generally the new one works.

Actually, normally, whenever I used to fail a card, I changed the story, somehow ended up using both stories, then was all like "whatever, who cares." Much more however, I'd remember a custom story or two that I read over once really quickly, and then later have no !@#$ing clue in !@#$ how I remembered that story instead of the one I spent 2 minutes on. And also, most of the time it was a story that bored the crap out of me, or I never thought would work well.

Basically, a lot of strange stuff occurs in my head. I'm very eccentric both mentally and in my conceptualizations. I guess people who are angry with my stories can understand that well