For people wondering why this might be relevant to HN - I came across this piece while reading about the origins of UC Santa Cruz and thought some of the advice here was insightful and potentially useful to people who write in general. I like this one for instance:

"Once you have fallen in love with your subject write about it as swiftly as possible. Passion grows cold or turns readily to dogma. There is, generally speaking, nothing more disheartening than an historian who has devoted his whole life to one narrowly conceived subject. It is very largely true that the best work - if one takes into account its length and scope - has been done in a remarkably short time."