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Writer's Block? Already!?!

I know that belonging to various writer affiliations will help to get an agent at least look at you work so I've been doing my homework.  I looked up Romance Writers of America (RWA) and that is an easy one to join, simply pay the membership dues.  The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers group (SFWA) requires another step that is still faily simple; publish a short story in any of the eligible publications listed on their website.  I have discovered that for all the science fiction that I watch and read, I can't think of a single idea for my own science fiction story.  At least not an original one.  Every time I start to come up with a plot, I remember what show I got it from.  I suppose I need to combine the elements of some of my favorite story lines.  What's frustrating is that most days I can hear a line from a song or a gesture of a stranger and next thing you know I've got a whole novel based around what I think I caught.  Three days since I decided to come up with a sci-fi short story, not even a whole novel, but a short story, and I still have nada, nil, zip.  I read a few of the stories on one of the publications, Cosmosmagazine.com to get an idea of what kind of stories they publish.  One thing I learned was no happy endings apparently.  Out of the five I read, one had a not unhappy ending.  It was also the most boring of them to be honest.  But then when I thought more about it this morning, another three of them could easily have been extended.  They led you to believe that things were ending badly, but it would have been easy to pick up from there and have it lead to a positive resolution after all.  A short story with the potential of becomeing a full on novel.  I am confident that my own idea will come to me though.  Soon enough I will stumble on something that will send my imagination into overload and I won't be able to get the story out fast enough. 

On a side note, I have decided to attend the RWA conference in Anaheim this summer and may have even convinced my husband to come down with me.  I haven't told him how much it costs yet, so it may all change.  If I could just sell a couple short stories then I could easily justify the cost.  So if anyone has any great ideas they would love to share, I'm all ears!
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