I agree with the premise of what the first responder said, especially the bit about hooks. You need to link that Kanji to something.. and yes, of course logic would suggest that you should link the kanji to the Japanese word that you have/will become so familiar with.
But, I think you can develop ties with those Japanese words from the Kanji; in other words I think that you want to be getting into the Kanji soon, like now!
The method that I advocate comes under a lot of scrutiny from some students of the language, mainly those who have attained a very high level with the Kanji using a different method. The main reason that it comes under such scrutiny is because... it doesn't teach you the readings straightaway (shock-horror!!), yes, you won't be learning how to read the kanji from the get go. So if we don't have a reading what do we link the kanji to? An English keyword.
Then, when you come to review.. you look at the English keyword and then write the kanji. How do we do that?? well we break the kanji down into manageable primitives, assign a name to each primitive and make up a little story.. maybe something like this:~
1 Kanji:
恐 =
Fear
3 primitives:
工 =
Craft
凡 =
Mediocre
心 =
Heart
1 Story:
Fear is the
craft of the
mediocre heart.
OK, so not all kanji have such "easy to work with" primitives.. but the premise is still there and still works, trust me.
In short; the concept of this book is to give you such a powerful familiarity with the kanji, that you just happen to be able to write them from memory; the book can totally be completed at a reasonable pace in about 6 months; the author recommends that you shouldn't study readings alongside... that's not something you have to do, I took and passed
JLPT3, and
Kanji kentei level 8, whilst studying the book, and after roughly one year of study (Kanji study), I took and passed the Kanji kentei level 6 (825 characters) and I hope soon to be passing level 5.
Anyway, everyone learns differently and it won't be suited to some, but I think it deserves a look:-
Remembering the Kanji: James W. Heisig
Also, a must, to go along with the method/book is this website designed to take care of all your reviewing problems for you:-
Reviewing the Kanji
First 276 characters in ebook form;
if you do nothing else please just follow this link and read the introduction to the book:-
Remembering the Kanji: VOL. 1