My books are a big part of me and my life, and everyone who knows me knows about my blog (the old one or the new one), my writing credentials, and so on. So talking about my writing will just naturally come up in conversation.
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How do you talk to people that do show interest in your ideas without expounding for 45 minutes on the _____ that the _____ in ____ do because of ____ which is affected by _____ because of _________________________________, only to find that they have either fallen asleep, tip-toed quietly away until they could make a mad dash out of the building (or into one if you're outside), or stared off into space and started to drool?
When talking with an uninvolved party you want to keep to the essentials, the heartbeat, as I like to call it. You want them to feel the pulse of your book. What are the important parts? What is the point of the story? You need to figure those things down and condense it into a short and natural presentation that flows. Then, if people are interested and ask questions, you expound.
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How do you get other people to talk (this is extremely general, but we are in general discussion)? I have the problem a lot of times where I ask someone a question and they answer it and that's the end, I don't seem to know how to turn it into a conversation.
Ask questions that cannot be answered in a yes or no fashion. I've gotten very good at this.
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How do you share about your fantasy world/ideas in a way that makes them interesting and/or helps you find out whether the person is interested or not?
You let them ask. You don't want to push your story on them.