As Peter said speed it will come naturally over time, often you will find you sail through doing them, other times will seem like an age making them, many woods (and acrylics) will have a greater blunting effect on your tools hence they will take longer to make because you will need to re-hone your tools often. Sanding again sometimes you will not need to do much, then there's finishing............. but that's a whole different thread 
As for what chisel I use for doing pens only a roughing gouge (except for parting tool on pens needing a tenon cut) 
And I do often do batch prepping, I may have an whole day just doing prepping, cutting to size, drilling, glueing, painting tubes for acrylics, then you can have a couple of days turning
