Access 2000 VBA mail merge problem Error 5852

Using Access 2000, and Word 2000, I perform the following steps:
Export a query as a text file for mail merge.
Open a Word document.
Execute a mail merge using the Word document and the text file as the data source.
The export function seems to work OK every time.  But at least half the time the merge function fails. This happens both on my machine and on another user’s machine.  Usually the error is 5852 “Requested Object Not Available” but I also get error 462.
 
Here is part of the merge code:

Dim objWordDoc As Word.Document
         Dim WordApp As Word.Application
         Dim strTempName As String
         Dim strFileSaveName As String
         Dim strTemplateName As String      
                           
          strTemplateName = "\\myshare\myfolder\MyLetterForMailMerge.doc"
         Set objWordDoc = GetObject(strTemplateName, "Word.Document")
         objWordDoc.Application.Visible = True
         
         objWordDoc.MailMerge.OpenDataSource Name:= _
        "\\myshare\myfolder\mailmergedata.txt”
        , ConfirmConversions:=False, ReadOnly:=False, LinkToSource:=True, _
        AddToRecentFiles:=False, PasswordDocument:="", PasswordTemplate:="", _
        WritePasswordDocument:="", WritePasswordTemplate:="", Revert:=False, _
        Format:=wdOpenFormatAuto, Connection:="", SQLStatement:="", SQLStatement1 _
        :=""
    With ActiveDocument.MailMerge
        .Destination = wdSendToNewDocument
        .MailAsAttachment = False
        .MailAddressFieldName = ""
        .MailSubject = ""
        .SuppressBlankLines = True
        With .DataSource
            .FirstRecord = wdDefaultFirstRecord
            .LastRecord = wdDefaultLastRecord
        End With
        .Execute Pause:=True
    End With
=================
Then there is additional code where I save the document and close the template.  This also seems to be OK.
Because the problem does not happen 100% of the time, could it be that the merge code is executing while the template doc is still busy opening?  And if so, how can I avoid that?

If this can’t be solved, I’ll give up on mail merge and instead build a new Word doc using VBA and inserting data by looping through the query recordset.  
I recall seeing documentation on this but I can’t find a thing now that I may need it, so I’ll consider giving points for a steer toward any resources that explain how this can be done.