One of the things that isn't making sense as I get familiar with Inkscape is the font spacing. I have some font and whenever I try to add spacing, particularly between characters (width-wise), then it acts totally erratic. Sometimes one click to either increase or decrease spacing will make a minor adjustment while the next click will be a massive one. Then sometimes I click to decrease the spacing and instead it increases (or vice versa). It's starting to drive me a bit loopy and so here I am.

Quick, someone talk me off the cliff.

That looks similar to this:
http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15432&p=57726