"Any thoughts on creating magic outside the protection of a circle?"
Since I was taught by non-traditional practitioners, I accept the possibility that there are an infinite number of ways in which to accomplish any one thing - there being no One absolute correct way. From my own experience, magick can be performed 'off-the-cuff' without any ceremony/ritual and have just as much effectiveness as magick that involves tools/rituals/circles etc. That's NOT to say that such instant and empty-handed methods are for the lazy or that they're easy. In my opinion they are both more natural and yet more difficult to execute as they involve the development of one's psychic facilities to a far greater extent. Ultimately, with the 'empty-handed' forms of working it's all a matter of being able to perceive energy directly and exerting one's force of will upon it in a calculated way based on learned methods of energy working. It takes time to learn how to perceive and channel energy at will psychically (and efficiently) and then learn how it responds in various phases. It also takes time to learn how to apply that energy to cause an effect whether physically or astrally within yourself or outside of yourself. From what I've observed, if you've done the necessary work to build psychic defenses into yourself and into your aura (through energy exercises and repeated practice of intense/effective banishings) then a circle won't matter. You'll be carrying your 'circle' (which is really a sphere) within you and around you at all times. Not too many folk-practitioners agree with me on those points, but speaking from my own experiences and personal instruction (mostly in ceremonial/Enochian/Hermetic systems and lots of 'off-the-cuff' working in groups and solitary), that is as correct an answer based on experience that I can offer.