@Bonsai_Bentley
Coastal South Carolina - you might even be in a warm enough climate that this could be grown outdoors all year round. A good choice of tree for bonsai.
Bonsai, with any deciduous tree, or broad leaved evergreen is repeated cycles of allowing the tree to grow out, then pruning back. With young material, such as 1 gallon or 3 gallon nursery stock from a nursery, you normally allow the tree or shrub to grow out until the trunk is nearly 100% the diameter you want for the finished bonsai, before the first prune back. If you want a 12 inch tall bonsai, you should allow the trunk to increase to at least 2 inches diameter, 3 or 4 inches in diameter will give a better impression of an old tree. This may mean allowing the tree or shrub to grow to over 5 feet tall in order to get the trunk to increase in diameter. This may take several years. Only once the the diameter of the trunk just above the soil is as large as you want it for your design, then you do the first pruning. That initial hard pruning will take the tree from 5 feet or more tall back down to maybe 6 or 8 inches. The tree will explode with back budding. You then allow the new branches to grow a year or two, then you do the second pruning.
Pruning more than once a year is only done after the first several segments of trunk have been developed.
So bonsai is a multiyear process of growing out, then pruning back, and with young material the pruning back might only be once after several years. With more mature material, the pruning will be once a year. With advanced material the pruning can be more than once a year.
Photos would help, and give us an idea of what size bonsai you want - small = less than 12 inches tall, medium 12 inches to 36 inches tall, large = over 36 inches, with no upper limit, though any tree over 6 feet will be too heavy for 2 people to move around.
With a photo or two, and what size you would like it to become, we can come up with a plan for you.
He also...says that the bottlebrush in the photo (the one I shared here that was NOT a weeping form) has signs of extreme overwatering and with dead wood showing at the roots it is only a matter of time for it to completely die off. He though...has some bottlebrush weeping prebonsai...and will send me some photos of them. 
