> and i want to increment this variable 

You can't change the values of variables in XSL.


I think what you want is the number of characters in any descendent of
TextBlock, for which you don't want variables or loops or any of that
nastiness, you just want

<xsl:variable name="total" select="string-length{TextBlock)" />

David


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list