This is absolutely fantastic. Seriously I would say my favorite thing to do is answer questions and help people understand things. That's why I became a teacher. I freaking love answering questions. And wouldn't you believe it, I've gotten a lot of questions in the last day or so and although I love answering questions, answering them over and over isn't the most fun, so I'll put a compilation here.
Q1: I was also wondering, when you write the kanji, do you know the pronunciation for them, or are you just writing for practice?
When I write the kanji, I am either listening to a sentence and then trying to write out the sentence, or just going through Remembering the Kanji, where I just read the English meaning and write the kanji. So to answer your question, around 50% of the time I know the pronunciation.
Q2: What kind of graph paper did you use? Have you changed your methods since you started with this (for example, found certain pens that are more useful etc)?
I use 8mm and 10mm graph paper. 8mm when writing sentences, 10mm when writing just kanji. I haven't changed much, but I started out just picking out two random pens with no reason, and now I at least check the color wheel to make sure I'm choosing either complementary colors, or at least not two colors next to each other. As for pens, I started with a 10 pack that cost me a dollar and it was a waste of a dollar. I had to press down so hard on the paper and my hand got tired really easily. I tend to like easy writing pens, I got about 10 erasable pens and they were great, but they ran out very quickly. I actually just went to the store today and got a bunch of .5mm pens in hopes they'll last a little longer.
EDIT
My .5mm pens aren't going down very fast, but I don't like the thin lines they make, they make my kanji look much more messy. The fatter the better as far as looks. However, I got a 1.1mm pen once but it didn't even last me 2 days (maybe 5-6 mosaics) so it was fun while it lasted. I think these .5mm pens will last a while...not sure if I'll go back and buy some .7mm ones or not, I miss my fat kanji.
Q3: Do you know all of the kanji you wrote down by heart, or did you use a book to write some of them. If you know 100k kanji, you're a beast!
I know the stroke order and English meanings of about 2250ish. I know the pronunciations of about 1000 or so.
Q4: You took one of the kanji from a person's family name, and filled it in large on one page. And the other, smaller kanji on the same page are...what, exactly? All possible combinations you can make with the larger kanji? Do the smaller ones go before or after the larger one?
Ok so I have a sheet of graph paper that is 15x22 squares. Say I have a teacher who's name is 田中, I will draw the 田 on one side in one color, maybe using about 100 or so of the squares. Then I will fill in the others with different colors. On the other side, I'll do 中 the same way. All the little kanji are the same size. It's like making a mosaic of pictures, each of the little pictures is the same size, but they combine to make a bigger picture.
Q5: What was your strategy for counting these? Did you count the squares that the big kanji would require, or did you count them after you wrote the kanji?
The graph paper A was 15x22 (330 boxes) or graph paper B was 19x28 (532 boxes) so I just had to count how many sheets of graph paper I had of each and then multiply.
Q6: How do you feel this approach has helped you? Do you think it is an effective / efficient way to study these kanji?
I can't think of a better way. If you know a quicker way to learn kanji, let me know :) I started with Remembering the Kanji, but I think Kanji Damage would have been better. Right now I just listen to sentences and try to write the kanji. I usually take sentences from One Piece or movies so they stay fresh and aren't as bland as textbook example sentences.
Q7: Can you tell us what the song was?
If you do not know Jonsi, I suggest listening to the entire "Go" album before doing anything else.
Q8: Do you find that hand-writing the kanji noticeably increases your retention rate? Have you always practiced writing them, or is that something you only started to master after learning their readings/meanings first?
I don't think it makes too much of a difference these days for the easy kanji. I mean by now I've written all of the elementary kanji well over 100 times each and so writing them any more is probably a waste of time, but for the newer kanji I don't know well, if I really focus as I write and think hard about the pronunciation, it'll stick in my head for maybe an extra 3 seconds. I have pretty bad ADD so if I didn't write it, each kanji would probably only be in my head for a second or so.
I'm fairly certain I have never written a kanji incorrectly. When I first learned their English meaning I practice the correct stroke order and it always just makes sense, except maybe for 右 and 左. I don't know why the first two strokes are different, but I learned them from the start so I never gave myself the opportunity to write them wrong.
Q9: What kanji in particular do you use to make up someone's name? Is there a pattern or significance, or do you just fill it with random kanji to fill the grid?
The kanji that I write are just whatever comes up on my anki deck. They have no meaning other than helping me learn.
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