I don't read it regularly, but the editor of Shock Totem, K. Allen Wood, has a blog that is usually pretty good. I did, however, read this one, in which there are two links to less than desirable ways to respond when someone doesn't particularly like your writing. I found them entertaining, but they made me think about the fact that writers and editors are all people, and as such, are not always the most professional people.
I like to think that I demand a high level of professionalism of myself, even when faced with a less than professional response to my own writing. While it hasn't happened often (I usually only receive form rejections) there are times when I really have to wonder what happened on the other end of the submission email. There was one instance in which the editor, who provided a synopsis as part of the response, clearly didn't understand the story at all. I would normally consider this a problem, but my wife understood it just fine, and she hasn't read that much of my genre. Others have similarly had no issues understanding the story and it definitely was not a "you're not supposed to understand it" type (which I loathe, by the way). That was not an example of lack of professionalism, just an example of editors being human and just as prone to mistakes as the rest of us.
An unfortunate example of unprofessional behavior that I've experienced in my writing career was a personal rejection that I received that felt like the editor was attempting to make a personal attack against me. The funniest thing about it was that I quite clearly got an emotional response, which is generally considered to be the sign of an exceptional story. But this editor decided to pass, and in an appallingly unprofessional manner.
All of that aside, rejections are a way of life for writers who do not have a household name. Even writers that have dozens of published stories still face rejection, and when you have a string of them, it gets a little hard to take. I'll admit that even thought I consider myself to have a pretty thick skin, it has gotten to me at times. The funk generally only lasts a few days at most.
So the name of the game, as far as I can tell right now, is perseverance. Keep trying until your story gets in the right hands. There is an editor that will love it, and the job of the writer is to find that editor. It's really as simple as that. Not always an easy task, but simple nonetheless.
