Welcome to this magical place! I’m not much of a grower yet, but I’m sure you will be able to start your seeds the way you described. @devjyarn just gave you the most efficient and worry free way to do it. I start mine relatively like you described and I do relatively well. If I had all the right stuff, I would do better. But it’s always a work in progress, that’s what’s fun about it to me.
And for living soil, I strongly suggest @Ladithief threads. Like this one :
Enjoy yourself here, there’s plenty of nice and helpful people!