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I usually thank the editor for their time at the end of the story's cover letter, as well, so I don't write back to thank the editor after being rejected. Every so often, if the editor's dialogue warrants a response, I'll write back. I sent a robot story to Apex and something Mari said seemed to warrant a response, so we passed something like... one or two additional emails. Professional courtesy, yanno? I'll absolutely send something else her way when I write something Apex might be a suitable market for. But yeah, starting a running dialogue with every editor that writes you off? Tres creepy.

When I was reading for OSS1 I had one guy that seriously made me question my 'personal rejections' policy. I rejected his work, offered some serious criticism and he wrote back blustering about how he'd been writing longer than I (and he was right) and had been published more (probably 200 times more, unless he was bullshitting), etc. I wrote back and told him that if he had sent one of those other stories he might have gotten in, but this one wasn't right for me. Who am I to lecture someone like that, right? But on the other hand, how has he written that much over that long a period and not figured out that rejecting a story doesn't mean anything personal. There's no reason for an attack. When I get a rejection, I know my work is solid. Maybe the editor will give me some good advice, but usually by the time I send out a story, it's salable. I just need to hit the sweet spot; find the right market. Every writer reading this thread probably has me beat on number of publications, but my batting average is great; every story I've finished and subbed out has gotten published at least once (with the exception of two, both of which are still being shopped around).

I do find it very rewarding to work with other writers as an editor; I'd like to think I handle my projects a bit differently from other editors, but that might be all in my head. I turned down work from an author... told him it would be a waste to send me this short story when a little work could turn it into a novel. Funny thing is, he wrote back and said it WAS part of a longer piece, but he thought it'd work as a standalone as well. I told him otherwise, and he submitted another piece that worked a LOT better, and now he's part of Our Shadows Soar. Another thing that gives me a warm fuzzy... I rejected this kickass story about a woman becoming romantically involved with a demon. The only mistake the author made was assuming that demon = horror, which is not necessarily true. So I wrote her back and recommended a couple places, and got a response from her a couple weeks later that someone else had picked up the story. And about half the stories in OSS1, the authors and I had a bit of give and take on certain points of the stories and I asked for revisions. If I'm ever so strapped for time that I can't have that relationship with my writers as an editor, I'll stop editing. It won't be good for me after that.