One advantage of using Lua is that you don't actually have to write Lua code! There is a multitude of transpilers available for the language.
- [Moonscript](https://moonscript.org/)
Probably one of the most well-known transpilers for Lua. Adds a lots of convenient features like classes, list comprehensions or function literals. The [svermeulen/nvim-moonmaker](https://github.com/svermeulen/nvim-moonmaker) plugin allows you to write Neovim plugins and configuration directly in Moonscript.
- [Fennel](https://fennel-lang.org/)
A lisp that compiles to Lua. You can write configuration and plugins for Neovim in Fennel with the [Olical/aniseed](https://github.com/Olical/aniseed) plugin. Additionally, the [Olical/conjure](https://github.com/Olical/conjure) plugin provides an interactive development environment that supports Fennel (among other languages).