January is when all my motivation disappears. All my favorite things are over by January: National Novel Writing Month in November; the holidays in December; and the end of the year when we review our New Year's resolutions. January is when we must face the blank page and the dreaded blinking cursor.

Writing is just like any other resolution: we know that we need the exercise, we know we need to write as often as possible—if not daily.

But sometimes we just… can’t.

And we kick ourselves for our failure. Sometimes we can't even find the the motivation for that. So we look for inspiration wherever we can find it.

Quotes from authors are a great place to start (check out #MotiMonday in our Facebook group or our Page).

Image sites also spark inspiration; they say a picture is worth a thousand words after all. I find that NASA’s "Astronomy Picture of the Day" is helpful (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod).

Set your computer or tablet background to cycle through pictures in a folder so when you login, you have a new image and fresh inspiration.

Music can also be a great motivator. Different playlists help enhance or inspire different moods. Sometimes a single line from a song can help motivate you to write more than anything else.

Finding motivation is one thing but staying motivated is the hard part. It's constantly changing because we are constantly changing. In the end it's about finding a way—any way—to maintain that motivation. It's honestly the hardest part of writing. A great writing professor once told our class, “a writer writes”. He told us we should print it up, big and bold, and put it somewhere we would see it all the time. In university that message lived on my bedroom door, the fridge, the bathroom mirror; everywhere. Those words still resonate with me: “a writer writes”. It's what we do, it's who we are. So find a way to keep yourself writing, and enjoy it. We are the words we leave behind.

So be a writer. Write.

About the author: Robyn Cross has a BA in creative writing from Vancouver Island University. She is currently working on... way too many books.