A Scattered History
So, here’s a brief history of Scatterseed so far:
* The idea for a comic book based on the story of Gideon from Judges ch. 6 has been floating around my head since 2001 when I was shown and briefly told about The Red Star which I never actually read.
* The idea for a magazine about people changing the world started around that time too.
* Other ideas emerged later and by 2008, I had a head full of cool ideas that were all media-based. Either print, web, audio or undefinable.
* Hung out with a friend from YWAM who talked about his experiences with producing short films. The good, the bad and the really annoying.
* Suddenly inspired later that night, I began turning over the idea for a media lab in my mind. Originally non-profit, completely voluntary, very transient and based on a YWAM-like model.
* Listened to the first 3 episodes of Blizzcast while sealing Mom and Dad’s house and thought it would be so cool to work in creative media on big projects. Wondered if I should focus on sic-fi ‘geek’ media instead of the vague ‘all different kinds of media’.
* Struggled with making a decision between my love of creativity and media and my love of community and the emerging church. Wondered how the media lab should work financially.
* Moved to Massachusetts in August of ’08 with the intention of making a go at both the media lab in general and the comic book in particular. Looked for part-time work so I’d have plenty of time to work on my real career.
* Got a full-time, but temporary job. Started sketching a storyboard for the Gideon story on lunch breaks. Job ended about the same time as the storyboard wrapped up.
* The week of unemployment after, I began drawing full comic pages. Found a cheap scanner and downloaded a (first of many) trial version of Photoshop. Started the learning process.
* Got a job delivering pizza at night. Kept working on the comic. Started at 1 colored page a week. At the end, 1 a day (almost).
* Also working on a business plan for theScatterseedproject, asking people to support me financially in pursuing it, asking other people to help with the parable project and reading a lot of books.
* Got a job delivering bagels in the morning. Only 10 hours a week and more money per hour. Quit delivering pizza.
* Finally finished Part 1 of 5 on January 20th, 20 days past self-set deadline. Got to work full time on theScatterseedproject, but thinking of changing the name back to just Scatterseed. Wondering if it could and should be for-profit instead of non-profit. Decided yes to both.
* Contemplated business models. I decided that Scatterseed could potentially make enough money from advertising on the website and selling ‘hardcopy’ products to be financially viable.
* Began planning and designing website which would now be scatterseed.com instead of scatterseed.org.
And that’s where I’m at today.
