Chinese characters seem so overwhelming and unlike any other language, what is the best way for me to learn them?

Chinese characters appear to have little correlation at the start and because there are so many of them, they are hard to get your head round. Repetition is key to learning characters. it seems obvious, but even going through a list of vocabulary and slowly, one by one, writing out the words ten times or more, will make the characters sink into your brain. Don't worry if your characters are a bit messy or lopsided at the beginning, you will grow more familiar with how they look (I also recommend chinese character pratice paper for beginners as well as 0.3 fine point pens!).

Seems a bit boring to be writing the same characters over and over again, right? This is when your own creativity comes in. Methods such as writing out Chinese words on different coloured flashcard paper or drawing pictures of public places (a supermarket, a school) and labelling them with the appropriate vocabulary can be very beneficial to broadening your knowledge of Chinese words. They not only help you practise but also help the process be more enjoyable and more from your own creativity. It could also be memorising the different components of a character and seeing how they all fit together to make one word or even just writing out the characters using different coloured pens!