http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Category:Ascension_Strategy
I suggest reading some of these pages if you're new. It'll help you figure out what skills to pick to speed up, depending on what type of runs you want to do.
If you're doing soft core, it's all about items and consumables and familiars to go fast. I found this to be too much work and burned out on it. It's also expensive to go fast.
If you go hardcore (real men/women do) then this script is awesome. Read the Hardcore Strategy page, and my recommendation would be to pick up the booze and food crafting skills first (to get more turns per day) and then go from there. For hardcore you just need some decent familiars and skills to go fast, but the script will help get those skills.
WHAM set to your CCS will try to do it's best to kill the monster and I highly recommend it. You may think it's not picking the best way, but it's usually picking the way that will get you the most stats/items/meat/MP/HP/etc.
If you think you may want the Plexiglass gear (which is pretty sweet gear), then doing bad moon runs as early as possible on your character would be my recommendation. In bad moon you get to use none of your permanent skills, so it's good to do early on when you have few of them. Otherwise if you do the bad moon runs later it gets a little annoying that you start with nothing.
Runs take around two weeks. It does have some fun surprise adventures though.