No one wants a baggy book!?!

[Ralph Rotten]

I find that when I'm writing I start to waffle a lot and have to trim and trim and trim in the edit. Is this a common theme for writers or is this personal preference?
I lose patience with books that spend 500 words describing a tree in a characters garden. I like to get the the root (sorry for the pun) of the story as quickly and concisely as i can.
How important is it to keep a tight sharp story?
Anyway, I think this is long enough now...

One of the disciplines you get to master on your road to writing is Economy of Words.
It's a toughie. How do you paint the scene and characters without going on forever?
One of my faves for this talent was Ray Bradbury. He could tell a whole book in 30 pages.

It's just one of the things that you gotta learn in the first 200,000 words of practice.
Without seeing your writing, based on what you told us, I'd say focus on character development and scene illustration, and once you master those two, your Economy of Words will improve.

[Olly Buckle]

Myself, I like to paint a picture when I write so the reader can see the same thing I see. It helps to be able to use an economy of words to do it efficiently, though.

I suppose that the better you are at it the closer the reader's vision will be to yours, but I also think the chances of them seeing the same thing as you are about zero, unless it is something you both know like the Albert Hall, and even then they may view it from a bit further off or a slightly different angle. This is why I write for myself, not my readers, they all see the world differently.