DJ>Study and practice.  I've found writing out a new kanji of
DJ>immeasurable use when learning it.  

Indeed! I used the same technique learning the kanas.
So far, I've memorized only a few kanjis, like the kanji
for nani, kaisha, yen, and probably a couple more that
I can't remember anymore. (in which case, I've "unmemorized"
them already, ne?)

DJ>There is a reason why Japanese schoolkids are still learning
DJ>the kanji in the final year of high school.

When are those fool Chinese and Japanese going to
scrap that outdated mode of writing? ^_^

DJ>> My penultimate goal will be to READ your fanfic in nihongo
DJ>> and hopefully make sense of it.
DJ>> My ultimate goal is to be able to watch original Japanese
DJ>> anime without subtitles and make sense of it!

DJ>I rather suspect that the latter will happen long before the former.

Not if you consider one thing: a Nihongo word processor will
present its data in full kanas, without kanji! If that fanfic ever does
get translated to Nihongo, reading it will be much, much
easier!