Motes Played/cover ideas

Motes Played is a novella coming out in August. It follows a little (both in the sense that she looks like a kid and also that she is an adult who engages with the world as a kid) skunk named Motes (natch) as she comes into conflict with those around her over her Identity.

Motes is a skunk looking to be maybe in the 7-10 range most of the time. She tends to dress the part in overalls or corduroys with brightly colored T-shirts. As a painter (both of paintings and of theatre sets), she's almost always got paint splotches on her clothes, and occasionally her fur. She's a pudgy sort, despite her high energy and constant zipping around.

One thing that is common for her to dream about is a giant ultrablack square or rectangle in the middle distance that seems to hungrily devour all light. It's so common an occurrence that it usually shows up in her otherwise prosaic landscape paintings. I don't know how well this would work as an element on the cover, but it's worth keeping in mind.

Another common motif is dandelions in the flower state, rather than the puffball state. She and those around her are a bit obsessed with them.

Chalking the sidewalk

While it doesn't appear in the book, I've been thinking a lot about a scene of her crouched down while doodling on the sidewalk with chalk in a pretty standard spread-out neighborhood. There's an opportunity for the black shape above her.

Swinging/sitting on the swing

There's a playground in the neighborhood complete with swing set she is quite fond of. This could go either joyous with her swinging and happy or pensive with her sitting still and poking around in the gravel with her toes.