i knew roughly 4 to 500 kanji before i started with heisig, and i often find it strange to hang an english word on a kanji i already know (e.g. i just made a flash card for frame 449 (how do i insert the kanji here?) and writing down "all" seemed quite strange when i know it is read [kana]minna[/kana] and means "everyone") it kind of feels like moving backwards (though i realize it's an important step in the overall goal). but has anyone here experimented with mixing english and japanese in their stories? either all japanese stories or just english stories with japanese keywords sprinkled in?

I believe woelpad made a Greasemonkey script that allows you to change the keywords to whatever fits your fancy, and the stories support Japanese characters, so feel free to use Japanese keywords and Japanese in your stories.

For typing kanji, I usually just copy and paste the character in question from the Study section, although a far more efficient, albeit more long-term, method would probably be to install the Japanese IME.

for the kanji's that feel more natural in japanese, i've begun using woelpad's scripts (thanks woelpad!) and using a double keyword, for example my keyword for frame 556 is now "solely/ただ" that way i keep the heisig keyword, but still use the japanese word that i'm more familiar with.

If your Japanese is good enough, why not?

But I've found the keywords to be excellent labels. It's like when you get a new kitty, the first thing you do is give it a name. I guess the brain needs a label for everything, and that's the frustrating thing about the kanji: they don't have names.

But now that I worked through volume 1, I can refer to each kanji by keyword. It's consistent, it can be cross-referenced in RTK and kanjidic, and it makes total sense in my head. Like when I see a compound, I can think "Oh, hello valve! Hello hit! Have you guys met?" and introduce them to each other. Stuff like meaning and pronunciation is as important as a cat's color and breed. But if in my old age I begin to amass 2,042 cats, they sure as hell are getting unique keywords!

And I'll be sure to find one in a village and name it "Town", and find one in a town and name it "Village"