work

No, "work" is only countable in the context of "works of art." You can talk about the works of Shakespeare or Picasso, but not in the contexts you provided.

If you want to make it plural, you have to use a different, countable unit: bits of work, pieces of work, units of work, etc.

There is an idiom "in the works," (You have a promotion in the works. The promotion is being processed.) but that's an idiomatic expression and should not be mistaken for the non-idiomatic usage.

Two utterly nonsensical sentences--are these from that exercise book you mentioned a while ago?

The word "works" could be used in the first sentence, and as the second verb is a plural form, a plural subject is needed--but the sentence is almost meaningless in English. In the second sentence, "work" would be better--but neither of them would make a sensible sentence in English. I suspect it must get tedious for you to read this, but it appears to me that those sentences were not created by a native- speaker of English.

Yeah, to clarify in light of what Setanta said:

I left the work that was on the desk. (?) (I left the work on the desk?)
Your support shall be the motivation for the (up?)coming work.

To me, WB, and remember I'm a troublemaker, the grammar is okay but "work" suggests a single effort, like a book or article; "works" of course two or more such

However I do like FBM's suggestion, "upcoming"

...though don't understand #....488's objections above

Edited to support
, where I could almost agree with #....488. However, I can imagine a situation that a number of works had been submitted, some by mail, some in digital form, but one being placed on the desk; former assuring us that it was indeed he who placed it there; tho of of course his "I" would better be italicized

Excellent answers. Thank you.

Quite welcome WB