Re: My recent post, Melancholia,,,,,tponetom.

Re: My recent post, Melancholia,,,,,tponetom.
When I first posted that story, it was rejected because it exceeded the numerical limitation of "characters" which is 10,000. My post was credited with 10,129. So I chopped off a few lines and added them to a ‘reply to post’ to finish the story.
Now the plot gets ‘thinner.’
I have a copy of that post on my Windows 98, 2nd Edition, operating system on my old computer and it tells me that it has 6490 characters and 1461 words.
I also have a copy of same, on my new, slick, State of the Art, [[drive me up a wall crazy) Vista operating system on the new computer. It almost agrees with old 98. 6504 characters and 1464 words.
Granted, I did some editing and undoubtedly added a few hundred characters, but 3500 or so. I hardly think so
My question is, "What is the proper way to count characters, and who do you believe? Do empty spaces and vacant lines count as such. Ifso,Iwon’twritethatwayanymore!
I know that I use an excessive amount of commas and quotation marks, but that is just for emphasis.
Can anyone explain this dilemma of questionable characterizations and their numbers??
I did have two years of Gregg Shorthand in High School but my keyboard is not user friendly. And besides, who could read it?
To wit: [[/’) If I could connect the top of the slash with the apostrophe, it would read, "Dear Sir."
Sad. All of those lost arts,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,like "Tag." Inside joke,,or is it?