Which lisp? Are we talking about the Common Lisp or the Uncommon Lisp (Scheme)?
* Don't refer to Common Lisp as "lisp" or "Clisp" (Clisp is an implementation of Common Lisp).
* One tip I have for Common Lisp is that do not use the Quicklisp package manager because Guix package manager provides better security, as far as I know.
* Another tip is that you should use GNU Emacs, with either Slime or Sly. For Scheme, you should use Geiser.
* I recommend avoiding macros at first.
* Also, don't use the shorthand "forms" of CAR and CDR when you are writing the first versions of your program. By shorthand form, I mean that you can abbreviate CAR with A and CDR with D. To understand what this means, open a REPL and type: (caddr '(1 2 3)) the result should be same as if you typed (car (cdr (cdr'(1 2 3))))