Drawing upon the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, in particular their writing on Franz Kafka, this article stakes out the ground for a creative critical writing practice beyond the confines of literature. Exploring the notion of writing in relation to affect constellations, what causes one to write, and expressions without content, how one begins to write, the argument put forth is that in rethinking the distinction Deleuze and Guattari tend to make between artistic practice and philosophical thought, a (...) space is opened up for transversal lines that may cross between these fields in practices that are creative and critical and involve what Deleuze and Guattari refer to as aesthetic figures as well as conceptual personae. These practices, it is argued, provide a potential link between aesthetics, on the one hand, and ethics and politics, on the other. (shrink)