Author Samuel Bornman, Of Wizards and Warriors

00:00

Author Samuel Bornman, Of Wizards and Warriors

August 30, 2023

If you would like to purchase this book, which I recommend you do, please click here. A huge shoutout to Samuel for coming onto the podcast and writing a fun, challenging, and wholesome piece of literature for us to enjoy. Samuel is continuing his series so make sure to keep your eyes peeled in the years to come for more installments of this series!

Will's Art: ⁠⁠⁠Reflectedworks.com⁠⁠ USE PROMO CODE: FORTHEKING AT CHECKOUT FOR 10% OFF

To see what I'm reading click ⁠⁠here⁠ To keep up with my blog click here

Social Media:⁠⁠⁠⁠

For Gab page click ⁠here⁠

For Twitter click ⁠here⁠

To stack SATS at Fountain.fm page click ⁠here⁠

For YouTube click ⁠here⁠

Support:

To Donate Crypto click ⁠here⁠

For some Kingly Clothing click ⁠here⁠

Contact:

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠forthekingpodcast.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

Email: forthekingpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

Hello, For The King listeners. I am not your host, Rocky Ramsey. My name is Will Drzymski, a brother in Christ and friend of Raku's, whom he has generously invited onto the show in order to verbally showcase my artwork to you in 50 seconds.

As an artist, I strive to accurately reflect the glory of God and everything that I paint, and through that process, I hope to flood as much of the earth as possible with paintings, which accurately proclaim the undeniable fact that Jesus is Lord and the creation which he made commands us to worship him. So if you would like to join with me in distributing clean, refreshing artwork showcasing the creativity of the God who made us, I would be overjoyed to have your help. I run my own website called Reflected Works, where I showcase the artwork I've done in the past, sell original paintings and prints, and take requests for unique commissions.

Once again, that's ReflectedWorks.com, all one word, and I'm looking forward to helping you further the kingdom of God right now here on this earth by putting some of your free wall space to productive use. Thank you very much for your time and attention, and now enjoy the show. Hello friends, welcome to the For the King podcast.

I am your host, Rocky Ray of T-TEN. On the For the King podcast, we declare the edicts of the king, namely and chiefly, that YHWH reigns. I am joined this episode with Samuel Bourneman.

Bourneman? Sorry, I'm going to make sure I un-unciate that. Bourneman. And he is the author of the book of Wizards and Warriors.

It's on Amazon, you can go pick up a copy. So that's what we'll be discussing this episode, that book. So Samuel, how are you doing? And introduce yourself a little bit, tell us about yourself and what's going on.

Yep. I'm glad to be on this podcast. Thank you very much for hosting me, Rocky.

So as Rocky just said, I'm a new author of my first book. I'm really interested in writing books. I live an interesting life as a missionary to the Tarmara Native American people group in the mountains of Mexico.

And I'm also a seminary student preparing to continue my father's ministry among the Tarmara people as a pastor in the mountains of Mexico. Wow, that's awesome. I didn't know you were in seminary.

That's cool. What is the seminary? So seminary San Pablo. It's San Pablo Theological Seminary there in Juarez, Mexico.

And I'm in my senior year. That's awesome. So it's just an MDiv program? It is actually a bachelor's degree and then I will be going on for my master's.

Okay, cool. What affiliation is that? Like, is there a denomination that's played with? Yes, the denomination is called the Mexican Presbyterian Church. All right, that's cool.

That's cool. So most of Mexico is Catholic, but you're ministering to what kind of culture? So it's an animistic culture. They believe in everything having a spiritual cause, including sickness, why the crops don't grow.

So we're dealing with a subsistence farming culture. These people are growing their own food. They are the first or second generation to own horses to work in harness.

They've used them as pack animals, but it's only the second, first or second generation to use harness. So they are a little bit behind the times, but only because they live so remote. And it's definitely not a godly culture, not a good, healthy culture.

It's very vegan. Yeah. Well, praise God, you guys are there ministering to those people.

So thank you for that work extending the borders of the kingdom. So in the midst of all that, Samuel, you found some time to write a book. So tell us some background on what got you into wanting to write stories.

What led up to this book? Give us maybe a little bit of highlight or the story of your life that led to this story. So maybe give us a little bit of that, then we can move more into explicitly the book. Sure.

So my parents started me off in homeschool from a very early age. They taught me the ABCs all the way, you know, I was homeschooled all the way through high school. So in our home, we made books a priority, reading stories together as a family, bedtime stories.

My dad would tell us scary bear stories, just stuff that happened throughout the day turned into stories for our teddy bears and whatnot. And that, I would say, leads to a desire to tell your own story, enjoy a good story. And when you read an author who has, who's successful and has written a good story, it's well done, it's enjoyable, you get to the end of it and you're like, wow, that was that was good.

That was, that was amazing. And then you read some of the other books that aren't as, as good. And you say, well, I could have written a better ending.

Yeah, I don't like that. And so after my dad heard me complain about the endings of several books for a while, he said, well, why don't you just write your own book? He was annoyed that I was like complaining about how these authors ended their books. He's just like, write your own book.

Yeah. Makes sense. And so I started writing my first stories.

I was about 12 or 13 years old. I started writing, writing stories, just making stuff up, writing it down on pieces of paper. And I wrote a lot of stuff that I'd be embarrassed to have people read now.

But, but I, I'm now I'm here I am, you know, 23 got my first book published, a whole bunch of ideas for other books to publish some other writings that with a little bit of work. I could either turn into a collection of short stories or another book. Yeah.

And writing is just something I love. It's just comes out. I never really had to deal with writer's clock.

So yeah, that's awesome. That's good. Where do you find time in the midst of it? Is it more do you wake up early in the morning to get some writing? And do you do it in the evening? When honestly, a lot of it happens like I got five minutes before we had somewhere I just sit down and like read through the last page of what I wrote the day before or the week before.

And then I edit as I go and that gets me into gets my creative juices flowing and I get into the flow and I just write the next part just comes naturally. Yeah. Or Sunday afternoons.

I really like Sunday afternoons for writing stories. And then of course, there's those nights where you sit down at eight o'clock to start to do a little bit of work before you go to bed and then it's all of a sudden your dad's coming out of this bedroom saying, hey, it's midnight. What are you doing still up? Yeah.

Go to bed already. We got something beautiful. That's funny.

Yeah, that's cool. That makes sense. I'm trying to work on the skill of writing.

So I've recently been attempting to. So that's I appreciate you sharing kind of when you find time. I think Sunday afternoons, that's a good thought, you know, on the Sabbath.

If it's it is very restful to sit there and write, you know. And if it's something you enjoy. Yeah, exactly.

That's good. I'm growing to enjoy it. I got to work on it.

You know, it doesn't come as naturally to me as you know, it does you. Okay, awesome. So yeah, appreciate that, Samuel.

Moving on to the book of Wizards and Warriors. Let's discuss your first installment of the world of men. Y'all.

What was your goal with this book? And what are some of like, so what's your overarching goal? And then underneath that, what are some highlights that help aid you getting to that goal? So kind of make sense? Yeah, yeah, I think so. So I started out intending to write fun kids book, you know, just a little adventure story. You know, these kids get into a little bit of trouble, have this fun adventure, everybody goes home, and he's happy and dandy.

But I was writing it in, you know, I wrote my first draft, two months in the summer of 2022. And I was still thinking a lot about all the stuff that happened in, since March of 2020, with all the medical tyranny, and the masking and vaccines, and also thoughts of the infanticide that goes on in the Mac in America. And all that stuff kind of worked its way into the story.

And it became much more about writing about ethics, and morality, and getting people to think about what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is evil, transhumanism, is that good, or is that bad? Yeah. And what's what's what, what is appropriate and where's the boundaries? Yeah, so that's that's that's that's what the that's, that's that's that's that's the goal is to get people thinking about things that they might find uncomfortable. Yeah.

Yeah, they I'm sorry, you can continue. Oh, I was gonna know I was saying that some of the highlights along the way of things that I was exploring was biblical general roles and fantasy transhumanism, following God in terrible situations. Yeah.

And yeah, it was yeah, and resistance to evil. Yeah, that's good. I think one of I agree, one of the highlights was that transhumanist idea being presented in the book and the scene where Calculo, it's a little, it's a very short chapter, more in the middle of the book, but Calculo is, you know, basically, like cookie cookie cutter kind of attaching parts of various non human things, you know, to a human, very sadistic and kind of morbid that chapter, I thought it was very well written, because at the end of it, I was like, you know, kind of had a visceral response to it, you know, that's kind of nasty and kind of I don't like that what I just kind of read.

But you were you made it like that, which I you that was your effect that you wanted, I'm guessing. But yeah, yeah, by the time I was done with that chapter, I felt like I needed to go wash my hands and brush my teeth. And I'm the guy who wrote it.

So yeah, it was it was that was definitely a highlight and well written in terms of like the effect it had on the reader for sure. That's great. What inspired some of the characters? Did you base, you know, base any characters off of anything and you know, so Dalian, the bad treacherous female character.

Yeah. He, she was inspired by radical feminists. Uh huh.

She just she's just you know, she dresses like she dresses kind of masculine. She doesn't dress feminine. She hangs out with this group of young boys, and is kind of a negative, kind of negative and nasty and harsh and loud.

I intentionally wrote her that way because that's that's not how women are supposed to be. Yeah. And then Zeph the wizard is inspired by Moses, Elijah, Gandalf and Marlin.

I mean, yeah, the old stage character classic. Yeah. And, and he has what I also was exploring a little bit those themes of magic.

Because what is what is magic and what is authority given by God? And I specifically mentioned that authority part in the book because God gives his servants authority over certain things. And to paganize or to the eyes of someone who doesn't understand what's going on, it looks like magic, or it could look like magic. And so I was I was also kind of exploring that thing of theme of what's the difference between what why is Zeph a good wizard? And why is Calculo a bad wizard? Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, I think that that is a huge discussion that needs to be fleshed out more in Christian circles. Because maybe just tell me which thing about this, the way I kind of think about it. When we see the book of Acts, what the apostles were doing by the power of the Holy Spirit, you know, even Simon, the sorcerer and evil sorcerer who is getting his authority, per se, from wicked forces of evil, he wanted the kind of magic that the Holy Spirit was producing with the Holy Spirit, like you're saying, that kind of authority is ordered and well meaning restores mankind, you know, sorcery dismembers mankind tears it apart.

It's usually a tool to rule over others, you don't see Zeph trying to rule over others. It's magic. But you do see, you know, Calculo trying to rule over others with his magic, you know, so it's like, I like I like you tying magic because it is power, in a sense, to authority because you need the right authority wielding the kind of magic.

So we see that definitely in the scriptures. I think Christians need to explore that more even with things like pharmacia, drugs, modern day magic, like, you know, cell phones, what we're doing right now, internet. So yeah, I mean, a lot of enlightened thinkers, they saw magic and electricity tied together.

It was just we are going about it in a more physical way with the same effect, while telekinesis, like right now, what we're doing is sending information over a long, you know, a long distance, and you can hear me. Similar thing with telekinesis, you know, yet we're doing it through a physical means and those that have telekinetic powers are doing it through a more non physical means. So I don't know if you have anything there you wanted to pick out or how that tied into the story.

But I think it did. I think you were exploring that for sure. Yeah.

And I would say that I've felt I have met some resistance with the fact that my book is so magical and fantastical. In some circles, I seem to think that maybe I'm some sort of really weird Christian guy who thinks that magic's okay, and some magic's bad. And yeah, you're right there.

There needs, I think there needs to be a discussion about this, which is, which is why I wrote about it in the book. Because I've had conversations with people about, oh, well, all magic's bad. Well, what, what do you what did most people call what Jesus did miracles? They were? Yeah, and a magical.

I mean, but why were they why were they so effective and magical? Well, because it was God stepping outside of the normal means of his activities, and doing things in a very spectacular manner for his glory. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

That's great. Yeah, I think that's the way we should view it. It's not really him.

He's he does do magical things all the time. So yeah, I think those kind of pietistic Christians that are like, Oh, you know, like, you know, the scriptures condemns necromancy and sorcery. I agree.

It does. Yeah, I'm not. You know, when I read a story like yours, I'm not I don't think I'm sitting by reading you have good magic in the story.

I think that's just naturally in the scriptures. And you're representing the good magic as coming from the light and not the dark, which is that is where good magic comes from. So yeah, yeah.

That's good. What's your favorite part of the story? What did you really enjoy? So my favorite part of the story would have to be the the battle that finally destroys calculus, army and forces. So you know, the three days and three nights of battling after the light is temporarily defeated by the dark eternals.

Yeah. And then he rises up from among the field of the dead and conquers all all the foes. Yeah.

And then all the dead or not all the dead, but most of the dead rise with him and ascend the victor staircase up to up to heaven. Yeah, that part I wrote it. And it made me cry to write it.

And I still get shivers when I read it. Even though I've read it, I don't know how many times in the editing, it's just, for me, that's my favorite part. The second favorite part would be when the light appears to stout right before the battle.

And yeah, it's definitely inspired by the the Jeri, you know, when Joshua meets the angel of the Lord before the battle with Jericho. That that that that inspired that. Yeah.

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I thought that was beautiful too. You you put in that motif of victory through defeat, in a sense, the unassuming victory and the trust that needs to happen, the trust, trust in the Lord that he will bring victory, you know.

So that's awesome. Any other thoughts there? No, I think that's all. Yeah.

So why did you pick the name stout? Exactly. I like it. You know, stout.

That's exactly what he was that it's kind of it's kind of John Bunyan, like you just named him what he is, you know. Yeah, that that was that was that was actually part of the thought because I mean, I've read Paul Bunyan and Pilgrim's Progress and that was you know, I enjoyed it. So that theme of naming your character what they are.

Yeah, I did that with stout because he, but I wanted him to kind of grow into it a little bit. He did. Yeah.

Because at the start, and I could have emphasized it more now looking back. But at the start, you know, he's a little bit rash. He's not stable and steady.

He's a little bit rash. And he gets a little whiny and he gets a little bit of bad attitude. And then starts the end, he's just steady, confident, obeys the light.

Yeah. It's just this strong stout character. And honestly, when I yeah, when I first when I first wrote my first draft, I put the name stout in there because I wanted to remind myself, think about a name that sounds like a stout, strong character.

Yeah, it was just a placeholder at first, but then I just couldn't think of a better name. So I mean, that all sounds as if I wasn't doing my job. But it's just like, the name seemed to fit.

It just Yeah. It was very, very unique word. I don't you don't see that word tossed around a whole lot anymore.

So I like it was very original, I thought very original, the name himself. That's cool. Yeah, I, any other? Yeah, I guess I really enjoyed just some of those big motifs to explore in the book, light versus dark, you know, good versus evil.

I make that that's what makes a story good. And you tapped into that and did it in your own unique way, which was good. I really appreciated that.

It was cool to see stout develop and you know, once he had trained with Octavian Octavian Octavian, Octavian, Octavian. Yeah, he was basically a full grown man and was ready to, you know, go on his adventure to slay the beast and get the girl, you know, kind of thing. Yeah.

So I love that. And Octavian's character was very I liked him very masculine character. Yeah, so I appreciate the book.

It was very, very good. Do you have any other big thoughts about the book? Why should people get your book? Why should people get it and purchase it? I think people should get it and purchase it to inspire young children to stand up to the evils that we see in our world today. Because children are really, and children and young adults are influenced by what they read, what they put in their minds.

And if you give them stories about slaying dragons, going out and conquering and defeating evil and doing what is good, what is right, that will affect their lives. Yeah. And I think that much of modern books, even modern fantasy books, things like How to Train Your Dragon, the hero, I may skewer some sacred gals, but the hero is kind of wimpy.

He's not a strong character. He's not, he's always the loser. He's the one who gets bullied and it's just fine to kind of coast through life.

The message it sends it gives us it's okay to coast through life getting bullied and beat up and everybody else is going to be successful and the person people like and you're just kind of going to be this background character. You should just accept that and be okay with it and you'll find happiness that way, which isn't the story about winning. It's a story about being okay with losing.

Yeah. And we definitely want young Christian warriors who will be growing up and conquering this world for Christ because that's what Christ said to the apostles before he left, go and make disciples. And that's not an easy job.

We need to give kids inspiration. I mean, I don't know how many times I've found inspiration from C.S. Lewis' Narnia series just for everyday kind of stuff. Yeah.

And I've been pulling over those books since I was eight years old. So I think people should get my book because people, young kids need to hear more of this kind of stuff more, more how to go out and slay the dragon. Yeah, that's good, brother.

Amen. Yeah, I have it. It's now on my bookshelf and I'm trying to assemble a library for my children as well.

And this will definitely be a one I think when my boys about 13, 14, 15, that kind of age, I mean, this is a story I put in his hands and he's going to be reading it. So hopefully that encourages you that I agree with you. I think that it would be a very formative story for a young man.

I think it would be very good. So yeah, I do recommend the book. If you're listening, please purchase yourself a copy.

And reading it as an adult, it's not going to have the same effect as a child reading it, I think it's going to they're going to really be able to connect with the characters in a unique way that an adult reading it may not be able to I really did enjoy the book, but it would be phenomenal for a young man or a young woman as well. I think it's good for young ladies also to read and see what a good masculine figure their age might look like, you know. So yeah, same, I thought it was very, very well done.

And yes, please purchase a copy and I'll make sure to have a link in the notes of the podcast. As we kind of wrap up here, Samuel, what exactly did you enjoy about the writing process? And what are some tips or some advice you'd give to aspiring writers, people that want to write more that want to fill the world with good stories? Because like you said, most of the stories now are awful trash. They're not good stories.

So what's some encouragement you went ahead to put yourself out there, put in the hard work and produce a good high quality Christian story for young people. What's some encouragement or some encouraging thoughts you would like to maybe leave the audience with that we get more of this kind of stuff coming out of Christendom. Yeah, I think something that really, really made it easy for me and took the stress out of writing Christian books is not thinking about it as writing.

I am going to write a Christian book. This has to be doctrinally sound. This has to be perfect.

This has to communicate the gospel and its fullness. That's stressful if you're trying to just write a fun story. And so I would say, have fun, enjoy the writing process, you know, throw in some goofy characters, throw in some demonic characters, whatever, have fun and think about it as right as let your Christianity affect your writing, not control your writing.

So I think of it as I am a Christian who writes books. I'm not writing Christian books. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, that's really good. So it's freeing, but it also does carry a burden with it, because you're not going to write, you're not going to write stuff that doesn't promote good values. Because you're letting, but you also have the freedom to just have fun.

Yeah, well, I would say one of the biggest things is just simply have fun. Yeah. And enjoy what you write and have a reason for what you write, because if you don't have a reason for writing this, if this is just a fun pastime, it doesn't matter if you publish it.

Right? If this is just fun for you, if this is just entertaining for you, you might as well watch a movie, because you're not doing anything productive. But like my father used to say to me before I actually put in the hard work to finish a book, and publish it. He used to say, are you writing or are you just having fun? Are you entertaining yourself or are you working? Yeah.

Because he wanted me to work, he wanted me to be productive. And if this was just entertaining, well, that's great. That's fine.

There's a pretty healthy form of entertainment. But I could also be turning this into something productive that I enjoy. Yeah, as well.

And finding a source of accountability. I had a really great accountability group. I joined a an online business association group to help people get their own businesses started.

And they held me accountable each week. What have you gotten done? Yeah. Tell us what they would say, okay, in this class, make these goals.

Tell us what your goals are. Then at the end of the week, I had to tell the accountability group what goals I had meant, or why I hadn't met a certain goal. Yeah.

And so that really, really motivates you to get stuff done because, well, partly you want to look good in front of everybody. But also, it's just feels good to actually get stuff done. Yeah.

And find constructive criticism, because my dad would tell me when I'd written trash. And he would tell me when I'd written something worthwhile. Like, for years, he'd been telling me, no, I really, it's a kind of fun story, but it's not really worth putting the work into it to get it published.

Yeah, no, don't publish this one, write something else. Yeah. He read this one through and he said, wow, this has the potential to be something better than just the rough draft it is.

So he, that really encouraged me because he spent all this time saying, no, no, no, honestly, you know, he wasn't, he wasn't being dishonest. He wasn't trying to discourage me. Yeah.

But his honest criticism, when he finally told me that I'd done something good, something worth working on, that also motivated me to say, oh, maybe this really is good. Maybe this really can be sold. And be aware of death by editing.

Yeah. Because that kills a lot of books. People edit and they edit and they edit and they edit for 20 years.

And then the book doesn't get published. We I know someone who has a book that they've been working on. And the guy has plenty of material.

But he just keeps perfecting this and perfecting that and tweaking this and tweaking that. And it's so sad, because the information he has could be really beneficial. And he's, I understand wanting to do a perfect job.

I mean, my book's not perfect. I wish it was. But I know the mistakes and not everybody who reads it will know the mistakes, because I'm the one who wrote it.

But if you, I'm not saying, you know, put out a book on J-Amazon that makes everybody talk about those self published books on Amazon. Yeah. But don't kill your story with editing.

I think that's a big mistake. Yeah, that's good. Those are really helpful things.

Yeah, I really appreciate that. So yeah, if you're listening and you enjoy writing, that is some very good advice from Samuel. So thank you for that.

I guess last question. I'm just curious myself. What do you like to read? What's what's some of your favorite authors, favorite books, you can just, you know, I guess, rank them or anything.

Just give me some of your favorites. You know, here's the US Louis JRR, Tolkien, Louis Lamour, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne, and Tarzan. He's most famous for Tarzan, but I prefer his space series books.

John Carter of Mars. Tarzan is very, the Tarzan books are very racist. I don't like them.

But for some reason, I don't know if he wrote them later in life or not. But the guy who wrote Tarzan later, I think it was later, wrote John Carter of Mars, and some other, some other books in that series. And if anything, they're anti-racist.

So it's like a 360. It's kind of strange. Yeah.

So those are some people I like. But if anyone reads my book, they'll know that I really like the Bible. And I've read the Bible a lot.

And they will probably pick up on some themes that were some stories of places where I got stuff in the Bible for my book. Yeah. Well, that's awesome.

Okay, well, thanks for that. Well, I hope that was informative, guys. Again, though, there will be a link down in the show notes for Samuel's book.

Samuel, do you have a website or a way people can keep up with what you're writing or a blog or something? I do not currently. I'm working on that. Okay, but I do not currently.

I got my book published and I said, I'll do that stuff later. Cool. Well, you can always just keep up on Amazon.

I'm sure if you publish another book, it'll be under obviously the same name and everything. So yeah, you guys can keep up that way. Keep your eyes.

I peeled for more of the tales of Ennio. So and the next books are coming out. I'm working on one.

I'm working on the next one. It's like 150 years later. So no stopping Sally sadly, but some other characters will be coming up.

Okay. Do you have an estimated time you think like by the end of the year by the end middle of next year? What are you thinking? I don't know. I'm just getting started.

So let's get to give me some time. All right. All right.

I'll give you some time. But I'll be I'll be texted from I'll be sending you emails. Hey, I almost sounds good.

Sounds good. Yeah. Yeah.

Accountable. Awesome. Well, thanks guys.

I always end with the doxology for simply 117 King of the ages of world. Visible the only God be honored and glory forever and ever. Amen.

So the.