Do the math.
My alphasmart backups for one year came to 6000 manuscript pages.
Halve this to account for duplication.
Double the amount of time taken.
That’s still 1,500 pages in a year.
Round down per month — that’s 125, so call it 100.
That’s 25 pages per week (on both 4 and 5 week months).
Which in a 5 day week is about 5 pages per day.
This is a gross underestimation of my writing output — and a gross overestimation of the quality.
But take all of this rounding down into account and let’s pretend that compensates for your ability to write well / finish something.
That means you could realistically hope to produce 5 finished pages per day. 25 per week. 100 per month.
Go steady. Aim to knock out 5 pages in the morning.
Come back and shape through day / evening and go no further except in brainstorms and notes.
Get 5 done early? Take rest of day easy.
You were producing 3 pages per day in 30–60 minutes for morning pages.
Here’s the deal: those pages per day must be on one thing as much as possible — not the mad incoherent gibberish you’re currently producing.
That could give you a novel in 3 months (decent draft) on the outside if you focus.
You have width, now you need depth.
Not too shabby for a non-writing writer.
[Reading back over this is hilarious, given how low my current output is, and optimistic.]
If I added up the words from the comments and tweets I would have a nice total each day. About as good as the number of steps I take walking around the house.