Lately, the thing that has motivated me most to write is reading good stories and writing by HW-ers. Another thing that has motivated me to write is watching Doctor Who. Because the storyline and characters are so well-written, it makes me want to attempt (and ultimately fail, but hey, at least I try!) to write something that powerful. XD

I sympathize with having trouble to find the motivation to write. =P My current working solution is to try to spend more time thinking about it in my free time/while falling asleep, etc. in order to keep it in my mind. The hope is that when I'm thinking about it a lot, I won't be able to keep myself back from editing it more. Excitement about the story helps with motivation, at least for me...

Between college, interning for my church, leading a ministry, and getting ready to move, I have had very little time and even less motivation to write. Ordinarily I just force myself to write and the motivation comes as I get into the story, but a couple of my friends at the college are super interested in my writing and that gets me into a creative mood... Although I usually am procrastinating on assignments in order to get the time to chat with said friends...

Godspeed in finding your motivation, though!

Listening to exciting music (or Lindsey Stirling) gets me in the mood. Or watching a really good movie. (It's a Wonderful Life inspired me to write my climax today...Yay for Mr. Potter being devious...) but another thing that inspires me is a really epic photograph. A waterfall, sunrise, mountains, ruined castles, whatever.
Another thing that helps is when I create my writing lair on my bed...sit in a huge nest of blankets, stare out window, write, repeat.

I adhere to the philosophy that is: If you don't like to write what you're writing, there's a very good chance that your readers won't like to read it.

Of course, this doesn't mean that you won't be un-motivated sometimes.... But the general idea of that philosophy pointed me towards my solution for getting motivated again.

And that is – Change something. If I'm not excited about writing the scene I'm on, then I change something about the scene. If I'm not excited about continuing the book, I change something about the book. For instance, I got a little down at one point during NaNo and didn't really have as much of a desire to work on it as I did before. My solution was to change the entire aesthetics from a realistic sci-fi style to a more steam punk-ish idea. It worked – I loved the new way everything looked and got excited again. And the change made the book better, especially considering some later developments of the plot and of the series.

Sometimes it's just something as little as changing a name spelling, or an entire name, or giving someone an interesting sweater; or it might be something bigger, like adding a character, or adding an entire 'nother MC and storyline to your original one (yes, I did that once 0.0), or setting the story in India instead of Chicago.

But anyway, that's how I stay motivated. It's great fun.

Writing lets one leave their situation in reality and live-however temporarily-in a world where things can go better, or at least you can control how they go. Pitiful coping mechanism, I know.

No, I totally do this as well, Charlotte! I always called it 'escaping into my other world'. It definitely still helps me even now to be able to escape. Like you, I don't only do it for that reason, but I do find that if I'm in a situation that I am finding hard to bear, writing really helps.

That's actually surprisingly reassuring....

I do it too, sometimes. Some people say it's a bad thing... and I guess it would be if you do it too much. But I think it's a good way of resting. You can't avoid the 'real world' constantly, but often a break from it is a good thing....

Maybe that's why God gave us writer's block: so we'd have to do something else!

that small bright thing, that treasured whisper deep in your heart

I actually find that watching a movie can put me off - as in it demotivates me rather than the other way around. It's different with reading I've found though!

Yes, I definitely have found that friends showing interest in my work has made me motivated to making time to write.

More than anything though, Abi's constant nagging helps.