When I started it was also slow. It took an hour re-writing and
then keep looking at them and testing yourself mentally the
characters for the next 2 days. That's for hiragana.
Katakana, unless you really need to learn first, you should do it
at your own pace after you have mastered hiragana, probably after a
week. Because Katakana is hell lot difficult to memorise than
hiragana. I don't know why. 
Also, as mentioned above, try to associate it with the chinese
originated word. It helps a lot if you are already strong in
chinese, and it is a plus as when Kanji comes along you can use
them with ease and even use Kanji to memorise Hiragana.
