[chopper]

re this "250 word" method - i can't quite remember where i've read it (possibly on the web, natch, which makes it unreliable), but i seem to recall that using a 12-point font like courier, with 1" margins all around, results in a very rough average of 250 words per page. applying that to a couple of my chapters - chapter one is 23 pages and 5747 words, resulting in an average of 249.86 words per page. but my cliffhanger chapter is 15 pages and 3323 words, because of increased dialogue, which results in an average of 221 words per page.
obviously using either of those two averages to measure a wordcount across an entire manuscript will give skewed numbers because your writing will vary in its denseness across each page. some chapters will be more talky, othres more descriptive.
Walker, i'd concur with John & Teresa - take the true count from your WP program as it will be more accurate than the 250 method.

s